In this paper, we consider the use of a team of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to accomplish a search and rescue (SAR) mission in the minimum time possible while saving the maximum number of people. A novel technique for the SAR problem is proposed and referred to as the layered search and rescue (LSAR) algorithm. The novelty of LSAR involves simulating real disasters to distribute SAR tasks among UAVs. The performance of LSAR is compared, in terms of percentage of rescued survivors and rescue and execut…