Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
COMPUTERS & INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING, cilt.216, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
Unmanned aerial vehicles, known as drones, have been contributing to society from several different directions. The use of drones in emergency management is one of the most remarkable capabilities of drones. Therefore, the use of drones in emergencies must be planned as effectively as possible. In other words, in emergency conditions, drones must be employed according to a plan developed from an operations research (OR) perspective to maximize their effectiveness. This paper surveys 136 research articles published between 2020 and January 2026 by systematically categorizing the scientific research into three main domains: communication support, delivery, and reconnaissance and assessment. Each category is analyzed by means of modeling structures, objectives to be optimized and solution methodologies to construct a unified framework of OR-based scientific literature on that topic. Furthermore, this paper categorizes the key challenges in the use of drones in emergency conditions, afterwards proposes a research agenda to guide future scientific research on the basis of this categorization. Ultimately, this review paper will highlight the gap between methodological achievements and practical needs and provide valuable academic insights to researchers interested in studying the use of drones in emergency situations.