A Methodology of Building Workflow for Search and Rescue Operation with UAV

The development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is progressing rapidly. Many efforts, such as capturing images immediately after the disaster, grasping building damage, and calculating the amount of debris are proposed for disaster mitigation and disaster response. Fire bureaus (FBs) in Japan also have installed UAVs, and the practical utilization of UAVs is demanded in actual activities. In the previous paper, we presented the utilization of UAVs with Wi-Fi sensing function for search and rescue (SAR) operation. However, it was difficult for us to deploy in the field because practitioners could not appreciate the relationship between new operations and existing operations. In practice, practitioners in FBs learn many skills through exercise and training and get experiences through practical operations. In this paper, to support the smooth installation, we propose a methodology of building workflow for SAR operation including UAV tasks. We visualize the workflow of new operations with UAVs and existing operations by using Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) with practitioners, and then we confirm the validity of the workflow using the Data Flow Diagram (DFD). WBS is a deliverable oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the project team. This paper presents the manual of SAR operation including UAV tasks as a reference model, and also describes a strategic planning process based on workflow. It is essential for practitioners to share current information for situational awareness and make an intelligent decision.