HEIDRA stands for Heterogeneous Edge Intelligence for Natural Disaster Response Analytics. It is a $4.8 million software platform project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under NSF 25-539 VINES Program (Track 2) designed to help emergency teams and first responders stay connected and access critical data during natural disasters.
The HEIDRA partnership of academia, industry, and disaster response stakeholders will deliver a resilient and reliable decision-making solution for emergency missions, using at-scale, live missions to validate enabling mobile and multi-access edge computing technologies under real-world conditions. Adoption-ready technology will scale to broader public safety efforts such as search and rescue by providing trustworthy next generation (NextG) radio efficiency, the first-time ability to rapidly adapt and reallocate resources, and local on-site, on-device intelligence. HEIDRA outcomes will impact future networking technology standards, while industry-relevant training materials and outreach will accelerate workforce development and commercialization across the emergency response and public safety sectors.
