Two-echelon vehicle routing problem with integrated drones and unmanned ground vehicles

作者：John F. Castaneda, Ramón Alfonso Gallego Rendón, Eliana Mirledy Toro Ocampo · 发表于：International Journal of Management Science and Engineering Management · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1080/17509653.2025.2490246 · 被引用次数：6 · 研究领域：Vehicle Routing Optimization Methods、Robotic Path Planning Algorithms、Advanced Manufacturing and Logistics Optimization

The Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) faces numerous challenges, including high-traffic areas, restricted access for cargo vehicles, high pollutant emissions, pedestrian-only zones, and limited parking. The VRP with Unmanned Vehicles seeks to address these issues by incorporating vehicles attached to the primary delivery vehicle. These attached vehicles encounter fewer access restrictions in delivery areas but have limited load capacity and range. This paper proposes formulating a two-echelon VRP using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) to compare their performance against the classical Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP). The objective is to identify the benefits—such as reduced pollutant emissions—of using these vehicles, and to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of each type of attached vehicle for the second echelon. The development is carried out in three phases. First, the problem is solved using the classical vehicle routing problem for the first echelon. Then, clusters are generated to reconfigure the routes from the initial solution, assign customers to the second echelon, and verify feasibility. Finally, a modified Iterated Local Search (ILS) is used to obtain solutions for the two-echelon problem. Performance and quality control are conducted using benchmark sets for the classical VRP to validate the proposed methodology.