Using Drone Swarm to Stop Wildfire: A Predict-then-optimize Approach

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel predict-then-optimize framework using convex neural networks, mixed-integer programming, and robust optimization to enhance drone swarm firefighting efficiency in complex wildfire scenarios.

Contribution

It introduces an integrated approach combining wildfire prediction, task planning, and robustness, advancing drone swarm firefighting capabilities under dynamic conditions.

Findings

37.3% reduction in drone movements compared to baseline

Outperformed genetic algorithm in fire extinguishing effectiveness

Efficiently solved complex models with Benders Decomposition and Branch-and-Cut

Abstract

Drone swarms coupled with data intelligence can be the future of wildfire fighting. However, drone swarm firefighting faces enormous challenges, such as the highly complex environmental conditions in wildfire scenes, the highly dynamic nature of wildfire spread, and the significant computational complexity of drone swarm operations. We develop a predict-then-optimize approach to address these challenges to enable effective drone swarm firefighting. First, we construct wildfire spread prediction convex neural network (Convex-NN) models based on real wildfire data. Then, we propose a mixed-integer programming (MIP) model coupled with dynamic programming (DP) to enable efficient drone swarm task planning. We further use chance-constrained robust optimization (CCRO) to ensure robust firefighting performances under varying situations. The formulated model is solved efficiently using Benders Decomposition and Branch-and-Cut algorithms. After 75 simulated wildfire environments training, the MIP+CCRO approach shows the best performance among several testing sets, reducing movements by 37.3\% compared to the plain MIP. It also significantly outperformed the GA baseline, which often failed to fully extinguish the fire. Eventually, we will conduct real-world fire spread and quenching experiments in the next stage for further validation.