Energy Consumption Model of Aerial Urban Logistic Infrastructures

Abstract

In the last decade, logistic systems based on small aerial vehicles (drones) have become attractive for urban delivery operations as a sustainable alternative to ground vehicles because they are not affected by the congestion of the road network, thus allowing for faster and more reliable services. Aerial logistic systems, however, require a substantially different approach to operations management and need specifically designed supportive infrastructures. While the research on urban aerial delivery mostly focuses on the optimization vehicle operations, the appropriate design of supportive infrastructures is seldom considered. This paper focuses on the energy efficiency of aerial logistic systems, and proposes a new original methodology to obtain a realistic estimate of the overall energy consumed by a swarm of drones employed for urban delivery, taking into account the extension of the area served and its specific features. The methodology proposed offers relevant information for the decision problems related to the appropriate sizing of the infrastructures, the dimensioning of the swarm of drones and the capacity of the energy storage system. The paper also reports a comparison with ground vehicles in the same scenarios, showing the relevant tradeoffs. The results obtained demonstrate how an appropriate design of the supportive infrastructures for urban aerial logistics may significantly impact the overall efficiency of the delivery system.

An Overview of Energies Problems in Robotic Systems

“…Therefore, the internal body of the drone became small and optimized. In this context, the quadrotor type presents a great example of mini drones, where its usage in real life has been increasing, especially in the last four years with the appearance of the pandemic and COVID-19 crisis; these systems became an excellent solution for delivery purposes and fulfilling logistics tasks [57][58][59].…”

CO2 emissions and delivery time of last‐mile drone delivery using trucks

“…The CO 2 emission factor of an EV truck was determined by applying the domestic emission factor, 0.45941 CO 2 eqton/MWh, based on the 2020 emission trading system, to the government's official fuel economy for the Porter II Electric model. The CO 2 emissions of the drone were calculated by applying the emission factor based on the mission trading system to an energy consumption of 30 Wh/km for the delivery drone [49] as shown in Table 1.…”

An Overview of Energies Problems in Control and Robotic Systems

“…With the evolution of technology in electronics and embedded systems, the production of minimized embedded systems and sensors became possible. Therefore, the internal body of the drone became small and optimized, in this context quadrotor type presents a great example of mini drones, where its usage in the real life is increasing, especially in the last four years, with the appearance of the pandemic and corona crisis, these systems became an excellent solution for delivery purposes and fulfill logistics tasks [84], [85], [86].…”