Aerial MANETs: Developing a Resilient and Efficient Platform for Search and Rescue Applications

The ability of first-responders to react to the aftermath of natural disasters depends heavily on receiving accurate, real-time data about the structures that may have been affected. Because transportation infrastructure may be unusable, aerial assessments are the gold standard by which such assessments are performed. The advent of mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) and autonomous aircraft represents a unique opportunity to allow for rapid response, while minimizing the cost of deployment and increasing reliability and operator safety. This paper describes the key challenges to implement fault-tolerant and efficient deployments of collaborative autonomous aircraft to increase operational reliability and performance when performing aerial sensing and assessment. Some challenges are affected by mobility, such as wireless communication, group navigation, and data collection. Security also represents a challenge during the operation of the MANET. We consider the effects of limited resources (e.g., real-time processing power, battery packs) available on the aircraft. By understanding both the application context and the resource availability, networked aircraft can reorganize to ensure resiliency for the mission if a resource failure occurs within the network.