An agent-based system for maritime search and rescue operations

Maritime search and rescue operations are critical missions involving personnel, boats, helicopter, aircrafts in a struggle against time often worsened by adversary sea and weather conditions. In such a context, telecommunication and in- formation systems may play a crucial role sometimes concurring to successfully accomplish the mission. In this paper we present an application able to localize the vessel who has launched a rescue request and to plan the most effective path for rescue assets. The application has been realised as a distributed and open multi-agent system deployed on rescue vehicles as well as on a land maritime stations of the Italian Coast Guard. The system is going to be tested in real scenarios by the Coast Guard.