Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Disaster Rescue: A Systematic Review and Integrated Framework of Functions, Technologies, Institutions, and Trends

Abstract

Global extreme climate disasters are occurring with increasing frequency. In China, about 100 million people are affected by natural disasters every year, and the direct economic losses exceed 34.54 billion yuan every year. The traditional ground response has some problems, such as slow response, inability to enter complex terrain, high risk of injury and death, and inability to use communication after disaster, which does not meet the needs of modern accurate emergency response. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) take advantage of its mobility and ubiquity, in all stages of rescue, including disaster investigation, air communication, material handling, asking for help and post-disaster assessment. In this study, English and Chinese literatures from 2015 to 2025 were selected from the databases of Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed and CNKI according to the systematic review guide of PRISMA 2020. Combined with the comparative case analysis of typical disaster in China (Jishishan earthquake, Zhuozhou flood) and abroad (Nepal earthquake, California wildfires), we construct a four dimensional integrated analytical framework encompassing Functions, Technologies, Institutions, and Trends. The results show that UAV has established five closed-loop rescue function systems: reconnaissance and monitoring, communication support, material transportation, search and rescue and post-disaster evaluation. However, if it is to be used on a large scale, it is limited by three technical bottlenecks (cruising range/payload, environmental adaptation and cluster deployment) and four shortcomings of institution (airspace approval procedures, industry standards, cooperation between provincial offices and data privacy). The global emergency response UAV market is growing at a compound rate of 16.6% per year. Artificial intelligence, the reform of low-level economy and the modernization of emergency response system will profoundly change the way of low-level assistance development. The framework will correct the fragmentation of existing research and provide theoretical basis and practical path for embedded policy formulation, instrument R&D and field standard rescue work.