Designing the Charging Stations Network for Freight Delivery by Drones Using Simulation-Optimization

Drones are a promising choice to the last-mile delivery in place of conventional vehicles that contribute to road congestion and air pollution. Despite the autonomy, flexibility, and agility of drones, their limited battery capacity and payload compromise their flight range. In this paper, this challenge is faced through the placement of charging stations where drone batteries are recharged to expand their flying span. This work relies on a simulation-optimization solution approach to determine the optimal number of the drone hubs to serve a given delivery order demand. The optimization aims at minimizing charging station installation costs, drone energy consumption, and operational costs. The simulation model is run to simulate the parcel delivery flights as well as the drone battery consumption and charging cycles. Moreover, allocating the customer demands to stations and dimensioning the drones fleet to deliver packages efficiently pinpoint the station locations and size.