Conclusion
In this paper we focused on the joint role that WSN and multi-UAV systems can play in the context of natural disaster management. The first main contribution of the paper is the classification of recent research efforts that use WSN and multi-UAV for disaster management, into the following application domains: • Monitoring, forecast and early warning systems; • Disaster information fusion and sharing; • Situational awareness, logistics and evacuation; • Standalone communication system; • Search and rescue missions; • Damage assessment. The second main contribution of the paper is the presentation of a number of issues and challenges that still remain unsolved. In order to provide the system designers and practitioners with a roadmap for research activities in this field, we analyzed the following set of open issues in disaster management: • Coverage, mobility and connectivity; • Robustness and reliability; • Security, privacy and safety; • Inter-operability; • Quality of service. By analyzing the current state of the art in the applications of WSN and multi-UAVs in the domain of disaster management, we aim on envisioning the future system that will tackle the identifies issues and challenges and thus push the state of the art one step forward in the definition of a complete disaster management system.
