Design of multiple package delivery system for unmanned aerial vehicle

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), commonly referred to as drones, have recently seen an increased level of interest as their potential use in same-day home delivery has been promoted and advocated by large retailers and courier delivery companies. The challenge is the deployment of a large fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones currently to perform deliveries of multiple packages within a given area of delivery, with each drone carrying a single package. Moreover, for deliveries within a small neighborhood, a single delivery drone makes multiple flights to and fro the distribution center e.g., a truck or van, warehouse, depot et al, each time carrying and delivering a single package. Such methods of deployment incur high costs of last- mile deliveries, longer time of deliveries and lead to an increase in the traffic density of a given airspace. These tradeoffs must be minimized to promote the feasibility of package/parcel deliveries by drones. We introduce a novel way to exploit drones in same-day home delivery designs: multiple package deliveries. We explore a technique that can be used to support multiple package/parcel deliveries by a single multirotor (rotary wing) drone on a single flight from the distribution center/depot/warehouse to different delivery locations within a given area or radius. We introduce the last-mile delivery problem in Section 1 and present the background of the project, the problem statement, its objectives, scope and significance/justification. In Section 2, we give a detailed literature review exploring the work that has already been done in relation to multiple package deliveries by drones, a detailed review of the best contributions to multiple package deliveries and a synthesis of new knowledge from them. Finally, in Chapter 3, we present the project plan comprising the requirements specification (containing detailed description of the proposed design), technical specification (containing flowcharts for the control sequences and a schematic block diagram for the proposed design) and results/outcomes of the project.