## 4 System Overview
### Mission  
The mission has been designed based on current firefighting operations and including research contributions addressed in Sections 2 and 3, respectively. It considers the tasks that could require the participation of the drone swarm, but excludes aerial extinguishing because it would need other types of drones currently in development.  
* Prevention: This phase groups the tasks that seek to avoid fires from occurring and control their spread.  
Vegetation mapping: In this task, the drones fly over an area of interest to take ground pictures and build a vegetation map. The number of drones, flight pattern and altitude, and other variables can be tuned to efficiently cover the area and obtain high-quality images. The drones must integrate conventional and multispectral cameras to perform this task. The base station processes images, build a mosaic, detect trees and plants, and recommend actions to the firefighters.  
Fire investigation: This task is developed after the fire is detected. The objective is to find evidence to identify and pursue the perpetrators of the fire. For this purpose, the drones must search around the fire to detect suspicious people, objects, and situations, monitoring static targets, and tracking mobile targets. Although this task is performed after the fire has occurred and the drones have detected it, it is considered a prevention task because it can prevent the occurrence of more outbreaks of the fire. In practice, few drones can perform this task while the rest are carrying out extinguishing tasks.
* Surveillance: This phase considers the tasks that seek to detect fires and alarm firefighting teams early.  
Risk mapping: This task is very similar to vegetation mapping, but creating a map with the risk of fire. This map is useful to know in which areas there is more probability of fire and reinforce surveillance over them. The drones must be equipped with conventional and thermal cameras to perform this task.  
Fire surveillance: In this task, the drones fly over an area of interest looking for potential fires. When one of the drones detects a possible fire, this or another drone must fly closer to check it. For this purpose, the drones must integrate conventional and thermal cameras, as well as environmental sensors: temperature, humidity, and concentrations of combustion gases.
* Extinguishing: This phase groups the task aimed at extinguishing fires and supporting firefighters.  
Fire monitoring: This task is performed to collect information about the fire while the teams on the ground extinguish it. Spatial and temporal information is useful to know the outline of the fire, locate new sources, and predict its evolution. For this purpose, the drones must fly around the fire to incorporate new information from the periphery while keeping updated information from the center. This task needs the same equipment in the drones as risk mapping and fire surveillance.  
Firefighter support: This task aims at supporting the firefighters that are working on the ground to extinguish the fire. For this purpose, the drones must fly around the firefighting teams to collect data about their surroundings and recommend them safe paths and effective actions. Additionally, the drones can transport light resources to firefighters, such as communication devices and protection equipment.