SCC-Planning: Coordinated Autonomous Operation of UAVs in Urban First Responder Scenarios

无人驾驶飞行器（uav）正在迅速普及，预计在未来几年内，将有数百万这样的设备投入使用。越来越多的人考虑将无人机用于紧急响应情况，在这种情况下，无人机可以减少第一响应者暴露于不必要的危险中，并提高响应者的效率，例如，通过提供独特的视角或快速部署专用传感器等额外信息。预计大多数无人机操作将发生在城市，这将需要开发基础设施和工具，以便在城市环境中安全有效地部署无人机。该项目将支持规划过程，以确定紧急情况下无人机安全操作的具体要求。为此，项目团队将与消防队员合作，探索无人机支持各种救援场景的挑战和好处。此外，该项目将利用这些合作以及各种活动和会议，在项目团队、学术界、工业界和城市规划领域的潜在合作者和利益相关者之间发起富有成效的讨论。预计规划活动将最终导致一项提案的发展，以全面实施各种应用场景安全无人机所需的基础设施和工具。超过80%的美国人口居住在城市地区，这意味着大多数无人机的操作将发生在人口稠密的地区，这些地区的特点是潜在的密集和波动的交通模式，靠近人类和建筑物，不可靠的GPS，头顶飞行路径和波动的环境条件。使具有不同目标、约束和能力的独立控制无人机在这样的环境中运行是一个具有挑战性的命题。该项目的长期目标是开发城市无人机飞行的跨学科解决方案，整合系统设计，控制理论和软件工程研究，专门解决城市无人机部署的技术方面的应急响应情况。项目小组将完成在城市应急情景中部署无人机的全面需求评估。该规划赠款的一个主要目标是确定参与应急响应（例如，消防、医疗、灾害规划等）的社区中的各种利益相关者，他们可以使用无人机解决的具体需求，无人机提供的机会，以及城市无人机应急响应支持的具体挑战。另一个目标是深入了解无人机操作的更大社会问题，包括道德和政策挑战。项目团队将组织一系列针对各种救援行动的实践培训课程，这些课程将用于强调无人机的潜在优势，确定应急救援队的具体需求，并引发各利益相关者之间的讨论，最终导致更深入地了解城市无人机部署的机遇和挑战。

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are rapidly gaining in popularity and it is expected that many millions of these devices will be in operation within the next few years. UAVs are increasingly being considered for use in emergency response situations, where they can reduce first responders' exposure to unnecessary danger and enhance the effectiveness of the responders, for example by providing additional information such as unique viewing angles or fast deployment of specialized sensors. It is expected that most UAV operation will occur in cities, which will require the development of infrastructure and tools that enable safe and effective deployments of UAVs in urban settings. This project will support a planning process to identify the specific requirements for safe UAV operation for emergency response scenarios. Toward this end, the project team will collaborate with fire fighters to explore the challenges and benefits of UAV support for various rescue scenarios. Additionally, the project will use these collaborations and various activities and meetings to initiate fruitful discussions among the project team and potential collaborators and stakeholders in academia, industry, and city planning. It is expected that the planning activity will ultimately lead to the development of a proposal to fully implement the infrastructure and tools required for safe UAV for various application scenarios. Over 80% of the US population reside in urban areas, which means that most UAV operation will occur in densely populated areas that are characterized by potentially dense and fluctuating traffic patterns, close proximity to humans and buildings, unreliable GPS, overhead flight paths, and fluctuating environmental conditions. Enabling independently controlled UAVs with diverse objectives, constraints, and capabilities to operate in such an environment is a challenging proposition. The long-term goal of this project is to develop cross-disciplinary solutions to urban UAV flight, integrating systems design, control theory, and software engineering research to specifically address technical aspects of urban UAV deployment for emergency response situations. The project team will complete a comprehensive needs assessment for the deployment of UAVs in urban emergency response scenarios. A main goal of this planning grant is to identify various stakeholders in the community involved in emergency response (e.g., fire, medical, disaster planning, etc.), their specific needs that can be addressed using UAVs, the opportunities provided by the UAVs, and the specific challenges of urban UAV emergency response support. An additional goal is to obtain deeper insights into the larger societal concerns with UAV operation, including ethics and policy challenges. The project team will organize a series of hands-on training sessions for various rescue operations, which will be used to highlight the potential benefits of UAVs, identify the concrete needs of emergency rescue teams, and elicit discussions among the various stakeholders that will ultimately lead to a deeper understanding of the opportunities and challenges of urban UAV deployments.