ABSTRACT
The SWIFTERS project capitalizes on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms to study, design and test, cooperation strategies that support the allocation of evacuation operations to UAVs in an intelligent way, with the ultimate goal of improving response efficiency and reducing evacuation times. Primarily, SWIFTERS aim to shape a clear picture of individual and common needs to be addressed, regarding the deployment of UAV platforms for emergency evacuation. An updated list of possible roles that UAVs in a swarm may have during emergency evacuation is presented and analyzed; including several UAV uses during past disaster events. For this, both the roles identified in the first part combined and the literature review were considered. Another significant part of the project is the list of indicators that will be used further to assess the gains of introducing UAV swarms in the evacuation process and disaster response in general. These key quality indicators (KQIs) will also be used to identify the scenarios that can benefit more, in which the SWIFTERS solution will be tested and evaluated.
