Drone delivery

Brief:  

With the popularity of online shopping in the recent decade, offline shipping has been in a state of fast development. In general, parcel shipping is divided into long-range and short-range. Long-range shipping usually refers to the process of transporting parcels between depots; while short-range usually refers to the process of transporting parcels between customers and a depot or warehouse. For the latter, the traditional method uses a van, which departs from the depot with a set of parcels and visits each customer one by one. This method is costly and non-environmental friendly. A recent concept of drone delivery has come to the front and it has been tested by some large logistics companies. Using drones for delivery may save lots of money for logistics companies if well managed. 

Three topics have been under investigation for drone delivery. 

• Charging station deployment: drones can recharge their batteries so that they can fly again when they run out of energy. 

• Collaboration between drones and vehicles: travelling with vehicles, such as on the roof of buses, significantly saves precious energy for drones.

• Last-centimetre delivery: drones fly into the balconies of customers, enabling customers to collect their parcels without getting out.

Published papers related to this project:

Y. Zhang, G. Zhou, P. Hang, C. Huang, H. Huang, An Enhanced Backtracking Search Algorithm for the Flight Planning of a Multi-drones-assisted Commercial Parcel Delivery System, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2023. 

C. Huang, Z. Ming, H. Huang, Drone Stations-aided Beyond-Battery-Lifetime Flight Planning for Parcel Delivery, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, 2022. 

H. Huang, A. Savkin, Deployment of Charging Stations for Drone Delivery Assisted by Public Transportation Vehicles, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2021.

H. Huang, A. Savkin, C. Huang, Drone Routing in a Time-Dependent Network: Towards Low Cost and Large Range Parcel Delivery, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 2021.

H. Huang, A. Savkin, C. Huang, Reliable Path Planning for Drone Delivery using a Stochastic Time-Dependent Public Transportation Network, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2021.

H. Huang, A. Savkin, C. Huang, Round Trip Routing for Energy-Efficient Drone Delivery based on a Public Transportation Network, IEEE Transactions on Transportation Electrification, 2020. 

H. Huang, A. Savkin, A Method of Optimized Deployment of Charging Stations for Drone Delivery, IEEE Transactions on Transportation Electrification, 2020.

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