Drone Delivery Systems

Recent advances in autonomous vehicle technology have the potential to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of many operations in the area of transportation and logistics. Automated driving is already successfully deployed in closed environments in various logistics and freight transportation settings such as port terminals, warehouses and factories. The next step in this development is the use of automated vehicles in an open, uncontrolled environment. One example of this that has received much attention is the use of drones and droids in last-mile delivery operations.

While there has been much research on the use of autonomous vehicles in automotive and aeronautic engineering, and many millions invested in tests and trails by logistics service providers and start-ups, the concept has only recently started to receive attention from the academic community in transportation and logistics planning.

In this project, we study new planning problem that arise in the context of the use of autonomous vehicle in the area of transportation and logistics and aim to develop novel optimization approaches to support the design, planning and control of autonomous vehicle operations in this area.