Shandong Science ›› 2023, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (6): 86-95.doi: 10.3976/j.issn.1002-4026.2023.06.011

• Traffic and Transportation • Previous Articles     Next Articles

The method to construct an urban logistics unmanned aerial vehicles low-altitude hub-and-spoke network

QU Xinyu(), YE Bojia(), CHENG Yu, LEI Changding   

  1. College of Civil Aviation,Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics,Nanjing 211106,China
  • Received:2023-02-17 Online:2023-12-20 Published:2023-12-07

Abstract:

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have considerable application potential in urban logistics delivery. However, there are many uncertainties in urban low-altitude airspace operation scenarios. Therefore, it is essential to build a safe and orderly logistics UAV delivery network using scientific methods. From the perspectives of delivery economy, operational safety, and features of logistics UAVs, an integer programming model of multilevel hub-and-spoke network was constructed based on the original ground logistics delivery network. A network construction method was proposed, which combines partitioning around medoids(PAM) clustering with distance restrictions and integer programming. Three evaluation indicators were selected, i.e., delivery timeliness, network security, and network structure characteristics, to compare the constructed logistics UAV delivery network with the original ground delivery network. A logistics UAV delivery network was constructed in Jiangning District of Nanjing city to verify the feasibility of the proposed network construction method. The experimental results show that the UAV delivery network constructed using this method has good delivery timeliness while taking delivery costs and safety into account.

Key words: unmanned aerial vehicle, low altitude airspace anagement, logistics and distribution, hub-and-spoke network, partitioning around medoids clustering

CLC Number: 

  • U8