Human-multi-robot shared control leverages human decision-making and robotic autonomy to enhance human-robot collaboration. While widely studied, existing systems often adopt a leader-follower model, limiting robot autonomy to some extent. Besides, a human is required to directly participate in the motion control of robots through teleoperation, which significantly burdens the operator. To alleviate these two issues, we propose a layered shared control computing framework using human-influenced guiding vector fields (HI-GVF) for human-robot collaboration. HI-GVF guides the multi-robot system along a desired path specified by the human. Then, an intention field is designed to merge the human and robot intentions, accelerating the propagation of the human intention within the multi-robot system. Moreover, we give the stability analysis of the proposed model and use collision avoidance based on safety barrier certificates to fine-tune the velocity. Eventually, considering the firefighting task as an example scenario, we conduct simulations and experiments using multiple human-robot interfaces (brain-computer interface, myoelectric wristband, eye-tracking), and the results demonstrate that our proposed approach boosts the effectiveness and performance of the task.

In recent years, the increasing prevalence and intensity of wildfires have posed significant challenges to emergency response teams. The utilization of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, has shown promise in aiding wildfire management efforts. This work focuses on the development of an optimal wildfire escape route planning system specifically designed for drones, considering dynamic fire and smoke models. First, the location of the source of the wildfire can be well located by information fusion between UAV and satellite, and the road conditions in the vicinity of the fire can be assessed and analyzed using multi-channel remote sensing data. Second, the road network can be extracted and segmented in real time using UAV vision technology, and each road in the road network map can be given priority based on the results of road condition classification. Third, the spread model of dynamic fires calculates the new location of the fire source based on the fire intensity, wind speed and direction, and the radius increases as the wildfire spreads. Smoke is generated around the fire source to create a visual representation of a burning fire. Finally, based on the improved A* algorithm, which considers all the above factors, the UAV can quickly plan an escape route based on the starting and destination locations that avoid the location of the fire source and the area where it is spreading. By considering dynamic fire and smoke models, the proposed system enhances the safety and efficiency of drone operations in wildfire environments.

UAVs are playing an increasingly important role in the field of wilderness rescue by virtue of their flexibility. This paper proposes a fusion of UAV vision technology and satellite image analysis technology for active wildfires detection and road networks extraction of wildfire areas and real-time dynamic escape route planning for people in distress. Firstly, the fire source location and the segmentation of smoke and flames are targeted based on Sentinel 2 satellite imagery. Secondly, the road segmentation and the road condition assessment are performed by D-linkNet and NDVI values in the central area of the fire source by UAV. Finally, the dynamic optimal route planning for humans in real time is performed by the weighted A* algorithm in the road network with the dynamic fire spread model. Taking the Chongqing wildfire on August 24, 2022, as a case study, the results demonstrate that the dynamic escape route planning algorithm can provide an optimal real-time navigation path for humans in the presence of fire through the information fusion of UAVs and satellites.