Review Article

Drones and Autonomous Systems in Disaster Relief Operations: Advancing Emergency Response, Operational Effectiveness, and Humanitarian Logistics

Abstract

The increasing frequency, intensity, and complexity of natural and human-induced disasters have exposed critical limitations in conventional emergency response systems, creating an urgent need for rapid, intelligent, and resilient disaster management solutions. Recent advances in autonomous technologies, including unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), autonomous ground vehicles, marine robots, and artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled decisionsupport systems, have transformed disaster operations by enhancing real-time situational awareness, search and rescue, infrastructure assessment, medical supply delivery, and humanitarian logistics. This narrative review critically synthesizes the current evidence on the evolution and applications of autonomous systems across the disaster management cycle, encompassing preparedness, emergency response, recovery, and humanitarian logistics. It examines recent technological advances while evaluating the technical, operational, regulatory, ethical, and economic barriers that continue to limit large scale implementation. Building on these insights, the review proposes the Adaptive Autonomous Disaster Response Ecosystem (AADRE) Framework, a novel conceptual model that integrates AI-driven decision support, heterogeneous autonomous platforms, human expertise, humanitarian logistics, and continuous learning into a unified disaster response ecosystem. The framework provides a scalable roadmap for improving coordination, interoperability, adaptive decision-making, and disaster resilience. The findings highlight the need for harmonized governance, interoperable digital infrastructure, multidisciplinary collaboration, and implementation-focused research to facilitate the safe and effective integration of autonomous technologies into future disaster management systems, with important implications for policymakers, emergency management agencies, humanitarian organizations, and researchers.

Authors affiliation:

Ruth Udu Ohaka (ORCID): School of Community & Geographic Innovation, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa, United States of America.
Ayomide Daniel Akinyemi (ORCID): Department of Sustainability, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois, United States.
Ugochukwu Udonna Okonkwo (ORCID): College of Applied Science and Technology, North Carolina A&T State University, United States.

How to Cite: R.U. Ohaka, A.D. Akinyemi and U.U. Okonkwo. Drones and Autonomous Systems in Disaster Relief Operations: Advancing Emergency Response, Operational Effectiveness, and Humanitarian Logistics. Journal of Computers and Applications, 2(2):1–17, 2026. https://doi.org/10.58613/jca221