Reliable Path Planning for Drone Delivery Using a Stochastic Time-Dependent Public Transportation Network

Publication Name

IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems

Abstract

Drones have been regarded as a promising means for future delivery industry by many logistics companies. Several drone-based delivery systems have been proposed but they generally have a drawback in delivering customers locating far from warehouses. This paper proposes an alternative system based on a public transportation network. This system has the merit of enlarging the delivery range. As the public transportation network is actually a stochastic time-dependent network, we focus on the reliable drone path planning problem (RDPP). We present a stochastic model to characterize the path traversal time and develop a label setting algorithm to construct the reliable drone path. Furthermore, we consider the limited battery lifetime of the drone to determine whether a path is feasible, and we account this as a constraint in the optimization model. To accommodate the feasibility, the developed label setting algorithm is extended by adding a simple operation. The complexity of the developed algorithm is analyzed and how it works is demonstrated via a case study.

Open Access Status

This publication is not available as open access

Volume

22

Issue

8

Article Number

9058989

First Page

4941

Last Page

4950

Funding Sponsor

Australian Research Council

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TITS.2020.2983491