Recent huge technological development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can provide breakthrough means of fighting wildland fires. We propose an innovative forest firefighting system based on the use of a swarm of hundreds of UAVs able to generate a continuous flow of extinguishing liquid on the fire front, simulating the rain effect. Automatic battery replacement and refilling of the extinguishing liquid ensure the continuity of the action. We demonstrate the validity of the approach first computing the critical water flow rate according to the main factors involved in the evolution of a fire, then estimating the number of linear meters of active fire front that can be extinguished depending on the number of drones available and the amount of extinguishing fluid carried. A fire propagation cellular automata model is also employed to study the evolution of the fire. The results suggest that the proposed system can successfully integrate, or in some cases completely replace, current forest firefighting techniques.

中文翻译：

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消防系统的新方向

最近无人驾驶飞行器（UAV）的巨大技术发展可以为扑灭野火提供突破性的手段。我们提出了一种创新的森林消防系统，该系统基于使用成群的数百架无人机，能够在火场产生连续的灭火液体流动，模拟降雨效应。自动更换电池和补充灭火液，确保动作的连续性。我们证明了该方法的有效性，首先根据火灾演变中涉及的主要因素计算临界水流量，然后根据可用无人机的数量估计可以扑灭的活动火锋的延米数和携带的灭火液量。火灾传播元胞自动机模型也被用来研究火灾的演变。结果表明，所提出的系统可以成功地整合，或者在某些情况下完全取代当前的森林消防技术。