London's Robotic Fire Brigade

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday July 28, 2009 @10:30AM from the playing-with-fire dept.

dustpan writes "The BBC has a story up about a quartet of robotic fire fighters that the London Fire Brigade is testing and with which have been achieving 'tremendous results.' The robots were developed by QinetiQ, which is a defense contractor. The LFB has been testing the units since last year and the machines are primarily used in fires involving acetylene canisters. The group commander for hazardous materials and environmental protection with the LFB says that the robots have cut the time to resolve these potential hazards from 24 hours to 3. From the article: 'Three years ago we were shutting down parts of London for over 24 hours every other week. Now it doesn't even make the news.'"

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Re:Same platform different end-effectors by fooslacker · 2009-07-28 12:17 · Score: 0, Offtopic

I'm wondering what got modded insightful? I assume the news of the wheels used to climb stairs would be "Informative" hence I'm left with the assumption that the Dalek comment was the insightful bit....ahh slashdot, thou art true to form =)