# An LLM-based Framework for Human-Swarm Teaming Cognition in Disaster Search and Rescue

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.04042 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.04042/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 25 of its 45 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 6 Nov 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 25 of 25)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11903/) (2022)
- [Visual Instruction Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08485/) (2023)
- [PaLM: Scaling Language Modeling with Pathways](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.02311/) (2022)
- [Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Reasoners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11916/) (2022)
- [BLIP: Bootstrapping Language-Image Pre-training for Unified Vision-Language Understanding and Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.12086/) (2022)
- [Robust Speech Recognition via Large-Scale Weak Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04356/) (2022)
- [Qwen Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16609/) (2023)
- [InstructBLIP: Towards General-purpose Vision-Language Models with Instruction Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.06500/) (2023)
- [A Survey on Evaluation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.03109/) (2023)
- [A Survey on Hallucination in Large Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.00253/) (2024)
- [ChatGPT for Robotics: Design Principles and Model Abilities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.17582/) (2023)
- [Towards Revealing the Mystery behind Chain of Thought: A Theoretical Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.15408/) (2023)
- [Multi-Modal Hallucination Control by Visual Information Grounding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14003/) (2024)
- [Human Action Recognition from Various Data Modalities: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.11866/) (2020)
- [RS5M and GeoRSCLIP: A Large Scale Vision-Language Dataset and A Large Vision-Language Model for Remote Sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.11300/) (2023)
- [UAV-Human: A Large Benchmark for Human Behavior Understanding with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00946/) (2021)
- [WebUAV-3M: A Benchmark for Unveiling the Power of Million-Scale Deep UAV Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.07425/) (2022)
- [A comprehensive survey of research towards AI-enabled unmanned aerial systems in pre-, active-, and post-wildfire management](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.02456/) (2024)
- [InsPLAD: A Dataset and Benchmark for Power Line Asset Inspection in UAV Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.01619/) (2023)
- [A Safer Vision-based Autonomous Planning System for Quadrotor UAVs with Dynamic Obstacle Trajectory Prediction and Its Application with LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12893/) (2023)
- [Safety-enhanced UAV Path Planning with Spherical Vector-based Particle Swarm Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.10033/) (2021)
- [Fusion Meets Diverse Conditions: A High-diversity Benchmark and Baseline for UAV-based Multimodal Object Detection with Condition Cues](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.13620/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Large Language Model-Assisted UAV Operations and Communications: A Multifaceted Survey and Tutorial](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.19534/) (2026)
- [ESARBench: A Benchmark for Agentic UAV Embodied Search and Rescue](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.01371/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Large-scale disaster Search And Rescue (SAR) operations are persistently challenged by complex terrain and disrupted communications. While Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) swarms offer a promising solution for tasks like wide-area search and supply delivery, yet their effective coordination places a significant cognitive burden on human operators. The core human-machine collaboration bottleneck lies in the ``intention-to-action gap'', which is an error-prone process of translating a high-level rescue objective into a low-level swarm command under high intensity and pressure. To bridge this gap, this study proposes a novel LLM-CRF system that leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) to model and augment human-swarm teaming cognition. The proposed framework initially captures the operator's intention through natural and multi-modal interactions with the device via voice or graphical annotations. It then employs the LLM as a cognitive engine to perform intention comprehension, hierarchical task decomposition, and mission planning for the UAV swarm. This closed-loop framework enables the swarm to act as a proactive partner, providing active feedback in real-time while reducing the need for manual monitoring and control, which considerably advances the efficacy of the SAR task. We evaluate the proposed framework in a simulated SAR scenario. Experimental results demonstrate that, compared to traditional order and command-based interfaces, the proposed LLM-driven approach reduced task completion time by approximately 64.2% and improved task success rate by 7%. It also leads to a considerable reduction in subjective cognitive workload, with NASA-TLX scores dropping by 42.9%. This work establishes the potential of LLMs to create more intuitive and effective human-swarm collaborations in high-stakes scenarios.
