  In disaster-stricken environments, it's vital to assess the damage quickly,
analyse the stability of the environment, and allocate resources to the most
vulnerable areas where victims might be present. These missions are difficult
and dangerous to be conducted directly by humans. Using the complementary
capabilities of both the ground and aerial robots, we investigate a
collaborative approach of aerial and ground robots to address this problem.
With an increased field of view, faster speed, and compact size, the aerial
robot explores the area and creates a 3D feature-based map graph of the
environment while providing a live video stream to the ground control station.
Once the aerial robot finishes the exploration run, the ground control station
processes the map and sends it to the ground robot. The ground robot, with its
higher operation time, static stability, payload delivery and tele-conference
capabilities, can then autonomously navigate to identified high-vulnerability
locations. We have conducted experiments using a quadcopter and a hexapod robot
in an indoor modelled environment with obstacles and uneven ground.
Additionally, we have developed a low-cost drone add-on with value-added
capabilities, such as victim detection, that can be attached to an
off-the-shelf drone. The system was assessed for cost-effectiveness, energy
efficiency, and scalability.
