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Drone Delivery Problem and its Extension

Tarih:  -

Konum:  A329

Speaker: Mr. Okan Dükkancı, Department of Industrial Engineering, Bilkent University

Abstract: This talk introduces the Drone Delivery Problem (DDP) in which drones are used to make deliveries to a number of customers and the drones themselves are transported by traditional vehicles that act as launch points. The DDP consists of (i) selecting the launch points from where drones will take off, (ii) assignments of customers to the launch points, and (iii) the speed at which drones are to travel between the customers and the launch points. We present a nonlinear model for the DDP, which minimizes the total operational cost including an explicit calculation of the energy consumption of the drone as a function of the drone speed, that is limited by both a service time bound and the range of the drone. The model is reformulated using second order cone programming, and subsequently strengthened by the use of perspective cuts. Computational results will be presented on a realistic data set.

The talk also includes an extension of the DDP that is called the Stochastic Drone Delivery Problem where uncertainty of the wind speed and its effect on the drone speed are considered. Initially, the model is formulated as two-stage nonlinear program and then it is reformulated by using deterministic equivalent problem and second order cone programming approaches. As a solution approach, we also propose a scenario decomposition algorithm. Computational results on the performance of the algorithm will be discussed.

Bio: Okan Dükkancı received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Department of Industrial Engineering, Bilkent University in 2011 and 2013, respectively. Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate in the same department under the direction of Professor Bahar Yetis Kara and Professor Tolga Bektaş from University of Liverpool. His research interests include integer and nonlinear programming, multi-objective and stochastic optimization and their applications to transportation and sustainability.