Last-mile drone delivery combinatorial double auction model using multi-objective evolutionary algorithms

Abstract

This study proposes a combinatorial double auction bi-objective winner determination problem for last-mile delivery using drone. Prior studies are limited on solving mixed integer model, which are not efficient for large-scale scenario. However, this is not practical in real cases as the computation time to obtain the solution is longer due to number of combinations of packages and participants anticipated in the last-mile delivery platform. Four multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) with the decomposed winner determination problem model are experimented. This study is able to yield Pareto optimal solutions from multiple runs of mixed linear integer programming (MILP) using different objectives weights in the model. Unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone, has potential to reduce cost and save time for last-mile logistic operations. The result positively shows MOEAs are more efficient than MILP in yielding a set of feasible solutions for undertaking complex winner determination problem models. The percentage of improvement in terms of time spent identifying the best option is almost 100%. This is likely an unprecedented research in drone where combinatorial double auction is applied to complex drone delivery services and MOEAs are used to solve the associated winner determination problem model.