A Heterogeneous Fleet of Vehicles for Automated Humanitarian Missions

An automated emergency response system and an experimental framework for its design and validation are presented here. The system consists of a high-level mission optimization and a fleet of heterogeneous autonomous vehicles. The fleet includes ground vehicles for setting up local stations, fixed-wing aircraft for assessing infrastructure damage and performing surveillance, and rotorcraft for delivering emergency supplies. Internet technology provides a unifying environment for the vehicles, optimization module, operators, and emergency responders with support for computational integration in cyberspace.