Master thesis proposals - external

Geistt

Using AI methods to Optimize Performance of a Human-UAV Team Performing Humanitarian Disaster Response Delivery of Food and Medicine
Contact: Petter Ögren (petter@kth.se)

Company: Geistt (http://www.geistt.com) 

In a disaster scenario with severely damaged infrastructure, such as flooding or earthquakes, the delivery of food and medicine is often very difficult.In particular, the so-called last mile logistics, getting items from airports or distribution centers to the victims, is a challenge.However, it is believed that a fleet of small (< 1m) UAVs can contribute in this area. In this thesis project, you will use Unity3D (a game development platform) to support the creation (an initial environment will be available) of a realistic simulation environment to evaluate your AI solutions. The focus of the thesis will be ondesigning and implementing AI capabilities for the UAV system, where example behaviors that are needed include searching for victims, delivering packages to victims, resource/task allocation to the UAV fleet of 3-30 vehicles (who searches where, who delivers what, trade-offs between risk and mission completion etc). The intended system is supposed to be operated by a human rescue worker. However, this person cannot control 30 UAVs at the same time, so an important part of the thesis is to determine an efficient division of work between AI and the human operator. Different design choices will be evaluated using the game functionality of the Unity simulation engine. 

Research questions

• What AI methods are efficient in a UAV disaster response system?
• What is a good division of work between Human and system in a UAV disaster response system?