IoT-Enabled Autonomous Vehicles for Wildfire Relief: A System of Systems Approach

Wildfires pose a significant and growing global threat, exacerbated by climate change and urban expansion. In many cases, traditional evacuation and emergency response strategies have proven inadequate due to poor situational awareness, communication failures, and delayed coordination. The increasing frequency of catastrophic wildfires necessitates an advanced and interconnected emergency response framework. This research proposes a multi-layered SoS model integrating IoT-enabled AVs, UAVs, and edge computing to enhance wildfire detection, monitoring, and mitigation. The core components of the proposed architecture incorporates real-time AI analytics, 5G-enabled communication, and autonomous response vehicles. The study investigates the feasibility of deploying CAVs for evacuation optimization, providing dynamic routing and congestion mitigation strategies. The successful execution of these objectives will establish a scalable, adaptable, and technology-driven approach to wildfire management. The proposed framework will serve as a foundation for future advancements in disaster response automation, with implications extending beyond wildfire evacuation to other emergency scenarios such as floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes.