Sensitivity Analysis of Aerial Wildfire Fighting Tactics with Heterogeneous Fleets Using an Agent Based Simulation Framework

The increase in the average temperature of the global surface temperature caused longer wildfire seasons, which have caused more severe and frequent incidents, resulting in higher expenses, unrecoverable losses and civilian casualties. Moreover, the increased number of wildfires has contributed to higher levels of carbon in the atmosphere, further exacerbating global warming. Fighting wildfires is a complex phenomenon that requires various resources, and the System of Systems (SoS) approach can be leveraged to analyze the problem. This study utilizes an SoS simulation framework to model wildfire suppression missions, focusing on a mixed fleet composition of suppression drones with different characteristics such as airframe configurations, payload capacity, flight velocity, and powertrain architectures. The study evaluates multiple suppression tactics, considering factors such as fleet composition, available agents, and resources. The results of the analysis show the impact of various environmental parameters on fire growth and provide a rigorous sensitivity analysis for wildfire containment use cases. The use of the SoS framework helps to reveal nuanced patterns at the SoS level, which can aid in the development of new solutions for wildfire fighting. This study highlights the importance of considering the complexities of the problem and the need for innovative approaches to combat wildfires effectively

Exploration of Aerial Firefighting Fleet Effectiveness and Cost by System of Systems Simulations

Wildfires are becoming a more frequent and devastating phenomena across the globe. The suppression of these wildfires is a dangerous and complex activity considering the vast systems that need to operate together to monitor, mitigate, and suppress the fire. In addition, the required cooperation spans multiple institutes in different capacities. Thus, the recognition of the wildfire suppression scenario as a System of Systems (SoS) is valid. Due to the dangers associated with firefighting and the increased occurrence, there is scope for the design of unmanned aerial vehicles for wildfire suppression. In this work, a SoS driven aircraft design, cost, and fleet assessment methodology is utilized together with a wildfire simulation to investigate several sensitivities relating to design and operational parameters. Further, this paper investigates their impacts on the measures of effectiveness, i.e. burnt area and operating cost. These two parameters enable the identification of optimal fleet size for wildfire suppression for a given scenario and aircraft definition

Sensitivity analysis of aerial wildfire fighting tactics with heterogeneous fleets using a system of systems simulation framework

The rise in the average global surface temperature has caused wildfire seasons to expand leading to more incidents with severe intensities causing a significant increase in suppression expenditures, losses, and casualties. In addition, the larger number of wildfire incidents gives rise to higher carbon release that stays in the atmosphere, therefore, further intensifying global warming. Fire incidents vary substantially in complexity from the point of view of required and available firefighting means which makes for a challenging multi-level complex problem. System of Systems (SoS) approach can be used to investigate such problems taking into accounts various factors such as response time, firefighting tactics, fleet composition, available agents, and resources. This study uses a SoS simulation framework for overall wildfire suppression mission modeling. It builds upon the research previously performed by the authors by introducing: 1. An extensive analysis for the effect of wildfire environment parameters on fire spread. 2. Multiple suppression tactics which open the door to new solutions for wildfire fighting in addition to revealing nuanced trends at the system of systems level by using SoS framework. 3. A heterogeneous fleet composed of various suppression drones with different airframe configurations, payload capacity, flight velocity, and powertrain architecture

Simulation of Urban Air Mobility: progress from the HorizonUAM Project

This work presents the Collaborative Agent-Based Simulation of Urban Air Mobility developed within the HorizonUAM Project. It details on the simulation capabilities, the approach taken to build a collaborative simulation and explores a potential integration using SUMO for the integration of Urban Air Mobility into an intermodal transport network. Note: Interested parties can contact [email protected] for the presentatio