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个这样的设备投入使用。无人机越来越多地被考虑用于紧急响应情况，在紧急响应情况下，它们可以减少第一响应者暴露于不必要的危险并提高响应者的有效性，例如通过提供额外的信息，例如独特的视角或快速部署专用传感器。预计大多数无人机操作将发生在城市中，这需要开发基础设施和工具，以便能够在城市环境中安全有效地部署无人机。该项目将支持一个规划过程，以确定应急响应场景中无人机安全操作的具体要求。为此，项目团队将与消防人员合作，探索无人机支持各种救援场景的挑战和好处。此外，该项目还将利用这些合作以及各种活动和会议，在项目团队与学术界、工业界和城市规划界的潜在合作者和利益相关者之间开展富有成效的讨论。预计规划活动最终将导致制定一项提案，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操作将发生在人口密集的地区，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，空中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，以专门解决城市无人机部署的技术问题，以应对紧急情况。项目团队将完成在城市应急响应场景中部署无人机的全面需求评估。这项规划赠款的主要目标是确定社区中参与应急反应的各种利益攸关方（例如，消防、医疗、灾难规划等），他们的具体需求，可以使用无人机解决，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。另一个目标是更深入地了解无人机操作的更大社会问题，包括道德和政策挑战。项目团队将为各种救援行动组织一系列实践培训课程，以突出无人机的潜在好处，确定紧急救援团队的具体需求，并在各利益相关者之间展开讨论，最终加深对城市无人机部署的机遇和挑战的理解。

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.