Finding Second Hierarchy Points for Cooperative Multi-Vehicles Delivery Route with P-median and Voronoi Diagram in Various Driving Area

Abstract

With the recent development of autonomous driving technology, various unmanned vehicles such as serving robots, mobile delivery robots, and drones have been developed. However, each robot has a different driving area, so it is necessary to find cooperative route for optimal unmanned delivery. In this paper, a cooperative scenario of an autonomous courier vehicle and five mobile delivery vehicles perform unmanned delivery tasks. The courier vehicle moves from a warehouse to the second hierarchy point, and drops off the five mobile delivery vehicles in order to transport goods to the doorstep of the destinations. We define the second hierarchy point by using the P-Median method and the Voronoi diagram method, and compare the results of each method using real map data. The points using P-Median are calculated based on the actual road distance and have shorter average moving distance than the Voronoi diagram method. The Voronoi diagram uses the Euclidian distance based on location information, which defines the second hierarchy point faster than the P-Median method. By comparing the results, we consider the Voronoi diagram method have capability in the cooperative multi-vehicle delivery route problem. The result of this paper have potential to be used in rough and remote areas where road information and infrastructure are lacking.