Mixed-Initiative Flexible Autonomy in Drone Swarms for COVID-19 Applications

Drone swarms have been utilized for various tasks during the COVID-19 pandemic. While most of these drones were controlled by human operators, research related to control algorithms of drone swarms has shown that autonomously controlled drones outperform human operators in a variety of tasks. This paper lays the foundation of a framework that utilizes flexible autonomy in control of drones during pandemic missions to boost performance efficiency. It also outlines the factors that need to be considered when designing mixed-initiative systems for switching between autonomous and human control during a mission. Flexible autonomy ensures that humans who understand the social dimensions of the pandemic are present in the control loop.