Multi-drone systems for search and rescue operations: problems, technical solutions and open issues

This paper deals with the literature review about the development of a heterogeneous and cooperative multidrone system for search and rescue (SAR) missions in the activities framework of the project ”CHeMSys: Cooperative Heterogeneous Multi-drone System for disaster prevention and first response“. The multi-robot system includes several kinds of vehicles: ground agents, water and underwater vehicles, fixed-wing aircraft and rotorcraft, considering their different operational capabilities, in order to cooperate autonomously. Two reference scenarios are considered: Long-range search and/or surveillance missions over a large area, and underwater scenarios for inspection, security, and movement operations. This paper focuses on the analysis of the recent results from literature about open technical issues.