{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,13]],"date-time":"2026-05-13T04:44:31Z","timestamp":1778647471268,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":27,"publisher":"ASME International","issue":"10","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,8,6]],"date-time":"2024-08-06T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1722902400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.asme.org\/publications-submissions\/publishing-information\/legal-policies"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["asmedigitalcollection.asme.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2024,10,1]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n               <jats:p>During disasters, such as floods, it is crucial to get real-time ground information for planning rescue and response operations. With the advent of technology, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are being deployed for real-time path planning to provide support to evacuation teams. However, their dependency on expert human pilots for command and control limits their operational capacity to the line-of-sight range. In this article, we utilize a deep reinforcement learning algorithm to autonomously control multiple UAVs for area coverage. The objective is to identify serviceable paths for safe navigation of waterborne evacuation vehicles (WBVs) to reach critical location(s) during floods. The UAVs are tasked to capture the obstacle-related data and identify shallow water regions for unrestricted motion of the WBV(s). The data gathered by UAVs is used by the minimum expansion A* (MEA*) algorithm for path planning to assist WBV(s). MEA* addresses the node expansion issue with the standard A* algorithm, by pruning the unserviceable nodes\/locations based on the captured information, hence expediting the path planning process. The proposed approach, MEA*MADDPG, is compared with other prevalent techniques from the literature over simulated flood environments with moving obstacles. The results highlight the significance of the proposed model as it outperforms other techniques when compared over various performance metrics.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1115\/1.4066025","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,19]],"date-time":"2024-07-19T17:28:50Z","timestamp":1721410130000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1115\/crossmarkpolicy-asme","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Multi-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Assisted Flood Navigation of Waterborne Vehicles Using Deep Reinforcement Learning"],"prefix":"10.1115","volume":"24","author":[{"given":"Armaan","family":"Garg","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Indian Institute of Technology Ropar Department of Computer Science & Engineering, , Rupnagar 140001, Punjab , India"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Shashi Shekhar","family":"Jha","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Indian Institute of Technology Ropar Department of Computer Science & Engineering, , Rupnagar 140001, Punjab , India"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"33","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,8,6]]},"reference":[{"key":"2024080617484299900_CIT0001","author":"UNDRR","year":"2024"},{"key":"2024080617484299900_CIT0002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1109\/ICUAS.2013.6564670","article-title":"A UAV Based System for Real Time Flash Flood Monitoring in Desert Environments Using Lagrangian Microsensors","author":"Abdelkader","year":"2013"},{"issue":"4","key":"2024080617484299900_CIT0003","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"96","DOI":"10.3390\/drones6040096","article-title":"Disaster Region Coverage Using Drones: Maximum Area Coverage and Minimum Resource Utilisation","volume":"6","author":"Munawar","year":"2022","journal-title":"Drones"},{"key":"2024080617484299900_CIT0004","article-title":"Reinforcement Learning and Evolutionary Algorithms for Attitude Control, A Comparison for Aerial Vehicles","author":"Dammen","year":"2022"},{"issue":"1","key":"2024080617484299900_CIT0005","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"115036","DOI":"10.1016\/j.apenergy.2020.115036","article-title":"Reinforcement Learning for Building Controls: The Opportunities and Challenges","volume":"269","author":"Wang","year":"2020","journal-title":"Appl. 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