Feature Selection for Intelligent Firefighting Robot Classification of Fire, Smoke, and Thermal Reflections Using Thermal Infrared Images

Locating a fire inside of a structure that is not in the direct field of view of the robot has been researched for intelligent firefighting robots. By classifying fire, smoke, and their thermal reflections, firefighting robots can assess local conditions, decide a proper heading, and autonomously navigate toward a fire. Long-wavelength infrared camera images were used to capture the scene due to the camera’s ability to image through zero visibility smoke. This paper analyzes motion and statistical texture features acquired from thermal images to discover the suitable features for accurate classification. Bayesian classifier is implemented to probabilistically classify multiple classes, and a multiobjective genetic algorithm optimization is performed to investigate the appropriate combination of the features that have the lowest errors and the highest performance. The distributions of multiple feature combinations that have 6.70% or less error were analyzed and the best solution for the classification of fire and smoke was identified.