Related papers: Probabilistic Planning for Maritime Search and Res…
We are witnessing the rise of autonomous cars, which will likely revolutionize the way we travel. Arguably, the maritime domain lags behind, as ships operate on many more degrees of freedom (thus, a much larger search space): there is less…
Search and rescue missions and surveillance require finding targets in a large area. These tasks often use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with cameras to detect and move towards a target. However, common UAV approaches make two simplifying…
Efficient path optimization for drones in search and rescue operations faces challenges, including limited visibility, time constraints, and complex information gathering in urban environments. We present a comprehensive approach to…
The ability to efficiently plan and execute search missions in challenging and complex environments during natural and man-made disasters is imperative. In many emergency situations, precise navigation between obstacles and time-efficient…
Autonomous drone technology holds significant promise for enhancing search and rescue operations during evacuations by guiding humans toward safety and supporting broader emergency response efforts. However, their application in dynamic,…
Water events are the most frequent and costliest climate disasters around the world. In the U.S., an estimated 127 million people who live in coastal areas are at risk of substantial home damage from hurricanes or flooding. In flood…
The gold standard for designing a search plan is to select a target distribution and then find the uniformly optimal search plan based on it. This approach has been successfully applied in several high-profile civil and military search…
We address the challenge of computing search paths in real-time for subsea applications where the goal is to locate an unknown number of targets on the seafloor. Our approach maximizes a formal definition of search effectiveness given…
Although each year brings rapid advancement in meteorology and forecasting technology, the threat of natural disasters is not totally predictable. Predictability, however, still will not guarantee avoidability, thus adequate time to react…
Rescue vessels are the main actors in maritime safety and rescue operations. At the same time, aerial drones bring a significant advantage into this scenario. This paper presents the research directions of the AutoSOS project, where we work…
The United States Coast Guard is charged with the coordination of all search and rescue missions in maritime regions within the United States purview. Given the size of the Pacific Ocean and the limited resources available to respond to…
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are of crucial importance in search and rescue missions in maritime environments due to their flexible and fast operation capabilities. Modern computer vision algorithms are of great interest in aiding such…
Countries with access to large bodies of water often aim to protect their maritime transport by employing maritime surveillance systems. However, the number of available sensors (e.g., cameras) is typically small compared to the…
Autonomous uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be utilized as aerial relays to serve users far from terrestrial infrastructure. Unfortunately, existing algorithms for aerial relay path planning cannot accommodate general flight constraints…
Optimization of ship routing depends on several parameters, like ship and cargo characteristics, environmental factors, topography, international navigation rules, crew comfort etc. The complex nature of the problem leads to…
This paper focuses on developing new navigation and reconnaissance capabilities for cooperative unmanned systems in uncertain environments. The goal is to design a cooperative multi-vehicle system that can survey an unknown environment and…
State-of-the-art emergency navigation approaches are designed to evacuate civilians during a disaster based on real-time decisions using a pre-defined algorithm and live sensory data. Hence, casualties caused by the poor decisions and…
This paper deals with the target localisation problem in search and rescue scenarios in which the technology is based on electromagnetic transceivers. The noise floor and the shape of the electromagnetic radiation pattern make this problem…
Operating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in complex environments that feature dynamic obstacles and external disturbances poses significant challenges, primarily due to the inherent uncertainty in such scenarios. Additionally, inaccurate…
Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly used for exploration-driven monitoring in hazardous environments such as disaster zones, contaminated sites, wildfire areas, and damaged infrastructure, where limited flight endurance must be…