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Evaluating the effectiveness of drones in emergency situations: a hybrid multi-criteria approach

Justin Zuopeng Zhang (Coggin College of Business, University of North Florida, Jacksonville, Florida, USA)
Praveen Ranjan Srivastava (Indian Institute of Management Rohtak, Rohtak, India)
Prajwal Eachempati (Indian Institute of Management Rohtak, Rohtak, India)

Industrial Management & Data Systems

ISSN: 0263-5577

Article publication date: 3 November 2021

Issue publication date: 3 February 2023

546

Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to build a customized hybrid multi-criteria model to identify the top three utilities of drones at both personal and community levels for two use cases: firefighting in high-rise buildings and logistic support.

Design/methodology/approach

A hybrid multi-criterion model that integrates fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP), Best Worst, fuzzy analytical network process (ANP), fuzzy Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) is used to compute the criteria weights. The weights are validated by a novel ensemble ranking technique further whetted by experts at the community and personal levels to two use cases.

Findings

Drones' fire handling and disaster recovery utilities are the most important to fight fire in high-rise buildings at both personal and community levels. Similarly, drones' urban planning, municipal works and infrastructure inspection utilities are the most important for providing logistics support at personal and community levels.

Originality/value

The paper presents a novel multi-criteria approach, i.e. ensemble ranking, by combining the criteria ranking of individual methods – fuzzy AHP, Best-Worst, fuzzy ANP and fuzzy DEMATEL – in the ratio of optimal weights to each technique to generate the consolidated ranking. Domain experts also validate this ranking for robustness. This paper demonstrates a viable methodology to quantify the utilities of drones and their capabilities. The proposed model can be recalibrated for different use case scenarios of drones.

Keywords

Citation

Zhang, J.Z., Srivastava, P.R. and Eachempati, P. (2023), "Evaluating the effectiveness of drones in emergency situations: a hybrid multi-criteria approach", Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 123 No. 1, pp. 302-323. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-01-2021-0064

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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