CPS:Medium:Interactive Human-Drone Partnerships in Emergency Response Scenarios

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Small unmanned aerial, land, or submersible vehicles (drones) are increasingly used to support emergency response scenarios such as search-and-rescue, structural building fires, and medical deliveries. However, in current practice drones are typically controlled by a single operator thereby significantly limiting their potential. The proposed work will deliver a novel DroneResponse platform, representing the next generation of emergency response solutions in which semi-autonomous and self-coordinating cohorts of drones will serve as fully-fledged members of an emergency response team. Drones will play diverse roles in each emergency response scenario - for example, using thermal imagery to map the structural integrity of a burning building, methodically searching an area for a child lost in a cornfield, or delivering a life-saving device to a person caught in a fast-flowing river. The benefits of this project will be realized by urban and rural communities who will benefit from enhanced emergency response capabilities. Practical lessons learned from this work will broadly contribute to the conversation around best practices for drone deployment in the community including issues related to privacy, safety, and equity. Achieving the DroneResponse vision involves delivering novel scene recognition algorithms capable of recreating high-fidelity models of the environment under less than ideal environmental conditions. The work addresses non-trivial cyber-physical systems (CPS) research challenges associated with (1) scene recognition, including image merging, dealing with uncertainty, and geolocating objects; (2) exploring, designing, and evaluating human-CPS interfaces that provide situational awareness and empower users to define missions and communicate current mission objectives and achievements, (3) developing algorithms to support drone autonomy and runtime adaptation with respect to mission goals established by humans, (4) developing a framework for coordinating image recognition algorithms with real-time drone command and control, and finally (5) evaluating DroneResponse in real-world scenarios. Researchers will leverage user-centered design principles to develop human-CPS interfaces that support situational awareness designed to enable emergency responders to make informed decisions. The end goal is to empower human operators and drones to work collaboratively to save lives, minimize property damage, gather critical information, and contribute to the success of a mission across diverse emergency scenarios.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.