The Flying Sidekick with Pickup and Delivery

In this quarter, we developed a novel drone-logistics model we call the Flying Sidekick Travelling Salesman Problem with Integrated Pickup and Delivery (FSTSP-PD). This model combines one truck and one drone in a single route and allows for both pickup and delivery operations by either vehicle. The drone can deliver parcels and then fly back to the truck empty, fly out empty and pick up parcels, or deliver and pick up parcels from the same customer or from two different customers. We formulated a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model to minimize the total service time.

Vehicle Routing Problems with Drone Resupply

During this quarter, we developed optimization models for several variants of the deterministic case of this problem, where we assumed that the moment when orders become available for dispatch is known in advance. The models differ mainly in the number of dispatch routes that each vehicle can make, and if the established time frame for deliveries is strict or not. After considering these variants, we settled on the model which we believe has the most accurate and realistic assumptions. For this model we developed a formal MILP formulation.