China's first robot fire truck appeared recently in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning Province. The innovation made a great breakthrough in remote-controlled firefight.

The fire truck is 7.2 meters long, 2.4 meters wide and 2.5 meters high, with a designed loading capacity of seven tons. It currently carries four tons of water and one ton of foam. It can shoot 100 liters of water per second to a distance of 80 meters. Without any driver, the fire truck can operate properly in a firefight.

The engine was developed after a fire took place on September 1 last year. Costing 1.5 million yuan (US$181,000), it can operate completely automatically, getting started, turning off engine, speeding up or slowing down, stopping, lightening and so on.

In addition to remote-controlled operation, the vehicle can also be driven by man. It is equipped with long-range water cannons and three remote-controlled cameras. With a separated water pump engine, water press can be added twice to extend the shot range.

The operator can control the truck within 500 meters with the help of the wireless video system, composed by a main video camera and two assistant cameras. The main video camera shoots the general situation of the fire site while one of the assistant cameras shoots the road conditions and the other shoots the operation of the water cannons.

A robot fire truck is especially useful in dangerous fires of petroleum, chemical and poisonous materials.

(china.org.cn by Feng Yikun November 8, 2002)