Building on an application scenario of the Bavarian Red Cross, Alexander Rave and Pirmin Fontaine examine in this paper the benefits of a truck-drone concept in disaster situations. A pick-up truck equipped with a drone is used to survey a river before, during, and after a flood event. This flexible concept allows for rapid image capture of the river, enabling the swift detection of missing persons, damages, and other critical information. The problem is modeled as a mixed-integer linear program. A case study based on the Ahr River and the 2021 flood disaster demonstrates that, compared to boat-based coverage, the river can be surveyed 56.3% faster.
The article is now available online here.