An Optimal Routing Algorithm for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Abstract

A delivery service using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has potential as a future business opportunity, due to its speed, safety and low-environmental impact. To operate a UAV delivery network, a management system is required to optimize UAV delivery routes. Therefore, we create a routing algorithm to find optimal round-trip routes for UAVs, which deliver goods from depots to customers. Optimal routes per UAV are determined by minimizing delivery distances considering the maximum range and loading capacity of the UAV. In order to accomplish this, we propose an algorithm with four steps. First, we build a virtual network to describe the realistic environment that UAVs would encounter during operation. Second, we determine the optimal number of in-service UAVs per depot. Third, we eliminate subtours, which are infeasible routes, using flow variables part of the constraints. Fourth, we allocate UAVs to customers minimizing delivery distances from depots to customers. In this process, we allow multiple UAVs to deliver goods to one customer at the same time. Finally, we verify that our algorithm can determine the number of UAVs in service per depot, round-trip routes for UAVs, and allocate UAVs to customers to deliver at the minimum cost.

Energy Efficient UAV-Based Last-Mile Delivery: A Tactical-Operational Model With Shared Depots and Non-Linear Energy Consumption

“…An ant colony optimization metaheuristic is designed as a solution approach. Kim et al [10] proposed a drone routing model with multiple depots, and multiple drones, allowing multiple UAVs to deliver goods to one customer at the same time. The objective function minimizes the delivery and drone usage costs.…”

“…point of view, is represented by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones. The scope of applications for UAVs technology is quite broad ranging from target hunting [5], wildfires monitoring [6], military and civil surveillance [7] to post-disaster management and commercial deliveries [8], [9], [10], [11], [12].…”

Topology based energy efficient routing using integration of fuzzy based markov chain cluster‐optimized novel ant bee colony approach in FANET

“…Zafar et al 14 suggested a multiple cluster based topology where a separate link table is maintained among the neighbor nodes to analyze the performance parameters of the other node to optimize the energy consumption. Bhandari et al 15 suggested a dynamic clustering framework where the overheads are reduced by limiting the resources to stabilize the network. But the network lifetime is very small making it disqualified for the selection of the cluster heads.…”

Guest Editorial Special Issue on Time-Sensitive Networks for Unmanned Aircraft Systems

“…In such a system, a management plan is needed to optimize the UAV delivery route in real time. S. Kim et al [ 6 ] proposed a UAV routing algorithm to find the optimal round-trip route for a UAV that delivers goods from a warehouse to a customer. The algorithm determines the optimal route by minimizing the transportation distance when the maximum range and loading capacity of the UAV are given.…”