Understanding Fire Through Thermal Radiation Fields for Mobile Robots

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Wagner, Anton R., Rao, Madhan Balaji, Xiao, Xuesu, Pirk, Sören
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Wagner, Anton R.
Rao, Madhan Balaji
Xiao, Xuesu
Pirk, Sören
author_facet Wagner, Anton R.
Rao, Madhan Balaji
Xiao, Xuesu
Pirk, Sören
contents Safely moving through environments affected by fire is a critical capability for autonomous mobile robots deployed in disaster response. In this work, we present a novel approach for mobile robots to understand fire through building real-time thermal radiation fields. We register depth and thermal images to obtain a 3D point cloud annotated with temperature values. From these data, we identify fires and use the Stefan-Boltzmann law to approximate the thermal radiation in empty spaces. This enables the construction of a continuous thermal radiation field over the environment. We show that this representation can be used for robot navigation, where we embed thermal constraints into the cost map to compute collision-free and thermally safe paths. We validate our approach on a Boston Dynamics Spot robot in controlled experimental settings. Our experiments demonstrate the robot's ability to avoid hazardous regions while still reaching navigation goals. Our approach paves the way toward mobile robots that can be autonomously deployed in fire-affected environments, with potential applications in search-and-rescue, firefighting, and hazardous material response.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_19108
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Understanding Fire Through Thermal Radiation Fields for Mobile Robots
Wagner, Anton R.
Rao, Madhan Balaji
Xiao, Xuesu
Pirk, Sören
Robotics
Safely moving through environments affected by fire is a critical capability for autonomous mobile robots deployed in disaster response. In this work, we present a novel approach for mobile robots to understand fire through building real-time thermal radiation fields. We register depth and thermal images to obtain a 3D point cloud annotated with temperature values. From these data, we identify fires and use the Stefan-Boltzmann law to approximate the thermal radiation in empty spaces. This enables the construction of a continuous thermal radiation field over the environment. We show that this representation can be used for robot navigation, where we embed thermal constraints into the cost map to compute collision-free and thermally safe paths. We validate our approach on a Boston Dynamics Spot robot in controlled experimental settings. Our experiments demonstrate the robot's ability to avoid hazardous regions while still reaching navigation goals. Our approach paves the way toward mobile robots that can be autonomously deployed in fire-affected environments, with potential applications in search-and-rescue, firefighting, and hazardous material response.
title Understanding Fire Through Thermal Radiation Fields for Mobile Robots
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.19108