Drone scheduling model for delivering small parcels to remote islands considering wind direction and speed

Abstract

The logistics infrastructure in urban areas has been gradually strengthened; however, delivery demand on small islands or in mountainous regions might not be met in a timely manner because of intrinsic geographical conditions. However, with the rapid development of drone-related technologies (i.e., small unmanned aerial vehicles), drone-based parcel delivery is considered a viable alternative for delivery to such areas. In this paper, we propose a drone scheduling model to maximize the minimum delivery amount to the target islands. In particular, a robust optimization is adopted to consider the uncertainties of wind direction and speed. To capture the impact of wind on the performance of the proposed scheduling models, we conducted a sensitivity analysis. Moreover, we performed validation experiments with real weather data to determine the feasibility of the proposed models and cross-check the sensitivity analysis results. The results indicate that the proposed robust optimization-based approach achieves better performance than the deterministic model under strengthening wind conditions. Stronger wind corresponds to a better performance of the proposed model. Also, a cost analysis was conducted to support the usage of drones for parcel delivery to remote islands, and it showed that the longer the drone-based delivery is operated, the more operation costs can be saved in comparison with the current practice.