# The Cloud-to-Edge-to-IoT Continuum as an Enabler for Search and Rescue Operations
## 4 Nephele Project as Enabler for SAR Operations
### The Search and Rescue Use Case in NEPHELe
and the overall resource availability. For instance, large data amounts used to replay some actions from robots paired with depth images of the surroundings (e.g., using rosbags) can be stored on the remote cloud. On the other hand, maps to be navigated by the robot could be stored at the edge for further action planning. Similarly, computation can be performed on the edge for identifying imminent danger situations or planning a robotic arm movement so that low delay is guaranteed, whereas complex mission optimization and prioritization computations can be performed in the cloud, and the needed resources should be allocated. The FRM will produce a deployment plan that will be provided to the compute continuum network manager; 1. The cloud computing cluster manager (CCCM) is responsible for the cloud deployments and interaction with the edge computing cluster manager (ECCM) (e.g., reserve resources, create tenant spaces at the edge and compute offloading mechanisms); 2. The edge computing cluster manager (ECCM) is responsible for the edge deployments, providing feedback on the application component and resource status; it receives inputs for compute offloading. Moreover, the ECCM will orchestrate the VOs that are part of the HDA graph and synchronize the device updates from IoT devices to edge nodes and vice versa. 2. The compute continuum network manager (CCNM) will receive the deployment plan from the FRM to set up the network resources needed for the different application components for end-to-end network connectivity and meet the networking requirements for the application across the compute continuum. Exploiting 5G technologies, a network slice based on the bandwidth requirements for each robotic device will be the output of the CCNM. Each network slice will ensure it meets the QoS requirements and service level agreements for the given application. 2. Once the VOs are deployed, a southbound interface for VO-to-IoT device interactions will be used to interoperate with the physical devices (i.e., robots, drones and sensor gateways). The VO will have knowledge on how to communicate with the IoT devices (i.e., robots, sensor gateways), as this will be stored and available on the VO storage. We assume the IoT devices to be up and running with their basic services and to be connected to the network; 3. Physical robots and sensor networks will communicate with each other through the corresponding VOs using a peer interface, whereas the application component that will use the data stream from the VOs will use the Northbound interface. Application components such as map merging, decision-making, health monitoring, etc., will interact with the VOs to exchange relative information; 4. The deployed VOs will use the Northbound interface to interact with the orchestrator for monitoring and scaling requests when, for instance, more robots are needed to cover a given area. The SAR HDA application will have a classic three-tier architecture with a presentation tier, an application tier and a data tier all implemented with a service mesh approach for the on-demand activation of generic/supportive functions for the hyper-distributed application. **Presentation tier**: the application will foresee a frontend for visualization and mission control by the end-user. A mission-specific dashboard will provide real-time situational awareness (i.e., a 3D map with the location of robots, rescue team members, victims and threats) to take well-informed confident decisions. The dashboard integrates data coming from heterogeneous sensors and equipment (e.g., drones, mobile robots). This will be accessible through a web browser or a graphical user interface (GUI) remotely and enable the service consumer to interact with the application tier to take mission decisions, trigger tasks that have been suggested by the automized application tier and analyze historic data for further information collection and situational awareness.