Roger That: Firefighters’ Perspectives on Integrating Drones in Radio Communication

Drones are increasingly used in firefighting to support situational awareness. Yet, current designs and existing practices hinder information flow between humans and machines. Through interviews (N = 12), we explore firefighters’ perspectives on integrating drones into their main remote communication channel, namely, the radio. We examined current radio usage, the state of drone deployment, and gathered their feedback on a futuristic drone scenario. Our findings span from existing organizational and communication strategies to how drones are, and could further be, integrated into existing practices. We uncovered structured practices that could facilitate the integration of robotic agents. Firefighters further suggested specific requirements for drone communication over the radio, such as concise and timely messaging. We propose design recommendations for drones as radio-communicating agents, bridging established low-tech practices with emerging autonomy. This work demonstrates the feasibility of drones as radio-integrated teammates and establishes principles for designing them as reliable situationally-aware agents in safety-critical contexts.