The Case of Medicine Supply in Aveiro, Portugal

The evolution of the urban environment has changed significantly in the last 50 years, and we see considerable investments in urban logistics in order to make urban processes more efficient. This investigation intends to study the situation of urban logistics with the objective to study the current state of this system and analyze what lies ahead in the near future. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has been under investigation in the world of logistics, having been pointed has the next logistic technology. For that reason, we set as an objective, analyze the working process of this aircraft, its capabilities, and its limitations. Based on this information, we intend to implement a scenario of deliveries in an urban environment. This scenario will be in the city of Aveiro and consists on the delivery of medicines into pharmacies located in an urban environment. With this study, we pretend to find the best current and future solution to operate in an urban environment. The study is divided into several studies, starting with an analysis of the literature, and then we carry out the SWOT analysis. Then we implement a delivery route to pharmacies, both for daily delivery and emergency medicines. The analysis is divided into two phases, one where the vehicles would initially start from the current logistical base and another phase, where the logistical base is proposed for a new location, that has been optimized to the delivery route to be carried out. From the various analyzes carried out, we obtain very conclusive results. For routes of significant payload and distance, the UAV is still not able to have great performances, being still preferential the use of a van. However, we verified that for emergency deliveries, the UAV from the new logistics base (L2) would have the best performance, as well as it would be a low cost of implementation. In some results, the performance was close to the van or even better, although it would not be cost effective. For that reason, we foresee a robust competition from the UAV as an emerging technology. It will soon have better capabilities and more competitive prices. The cost reduction of this type of deliveries may soon be possible with the use of UAVs.O meio urbano tem evoluído durante os últimos 50 anos, onde se verificou uma enorme aposta na logística urbana, por forma a tornar as tarefas urbanas mais eficientes e económicas. Esta investigação tem como objeto o estudo da logística urbana e tem como objetivo, aprofundar e estudar a estrutura atual dos sistemas de logística e analisar o que poderá ser o futuro próximo. Atualmente, a maior aposta tecnológica no mundo da logística é a aeronave não tripulada (UAV). Posto isto, tem-se também como objetivo analisar o funcionamento destas aeronaves, nomeadamente, as suas capacidades e limitações. Partindo de um cenário de logística urbana com recurso a UAV’s, pretendemos estudar e comparar o processo de entregas nesse mesmo meio urbano. A implementação do teatro de operações será na cidade de Aveiro e consiste na entrega de medicamentos às farmácias localizadas no meio urbano. Com este estudo tencionasse encontrar a melhor solução atual e prever uma futura que se adeque à operação apresentada. O estudo está dividido em várias partes. Primeiramente, começamos por uma análise da literatura e seguido uma análise SWOT. Por fim, no caso de estudo são implementadas várias rotas de entregas a farmácias, quer para medicamentos de entrega diária, quer de emergência. O sistema de entregas está dividido em duas fases, uma onde inicialmente a partida dos veículos seria feita na atual base de logística e outra onde o veículo parte de uma base logística proposta, que estará otimizada ao percurso de entrega que se pretende realizar. Das várias análises realizadas obtivemos resultados muito conclusivos. Para rotas de grande carga e distância, o UAV não consegue ter grandes desempenhos, sendo ainda preferencial a utilização da uma carrinha. Contudo, verificamos que para entregas de emergência, o UAV teria um melhor desempenho a partir da nova base de logística, e para além disso, o sistema de implementação seria mais barato. Numa análise futura, prevemos uma concorrência muito forte por parte do UAV, visto que em alguns resultados a performance deste é próxima ou melhor do que a carrinha. Sendo uma tecnologia emergente, em breve terá melhores capacidades e preços mais concorrentes. As reduções de custos deste tipo de entregas poderão em breve ser possíveis com a utilização de um UAV

Pre-Mission Flight Plan Optimization

The goal of this project is develop a tool to help with mission planning undertaken at the National Aeronautic and Space Administration in partnership with Draper Laboratory. The aim of these missions is to gather data using Earth- observing aircraft at a set of sites. In this project, we aim to minimize the total mission time. We model this minimization problem as a variant of the Distance Constrained Vehicle Routing Problem. We present two integer programming formulations of the problem as well as a supporting proof. While the results we present show that the solution time is limited by the available flight time for each aircraft and the number of vehicles, our implementation of the integer programming problem is able to solve problems with up to 35 sites

Unmanned Ground Vehicle navigation and coverage hole patching in Wireless Sensor Networks

This dissertation presents a study of an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) navigation and coverage hole patching in coordinate-free and localization-free Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Navigation and coverage maintenance are related problems since coverage hole patching requires effective navigation in the sensor network environment. A coordinate-free and localization-free WSN that is deployed in an ad-hoc fashion and does not assume the availability of GPS information is considered. The system considered is decentralized and can be self-organized in an event-driven manner where no central controller or global map is required. A single-UGV, single-destination navigation problem is addressed first. The UGV is equipped with a set of wireless listeners that determine the slope of a navigation potential field generated by the wireless sensor and actuator network. The navigation algorithm consists of sensor node level-number assignment that is determined based on a hop-distance from the network destination node and UGV navigation through the potential field created by triplets of actuators in the network. A multi-UGV, multi-destination navigation problem requires a path-planning and task allocation process. UGVs inform the network about their proposed destinations, and the network provides feedback if conflicts are found. Sensor nodes store, share, and communicate to UGVs in order to allocate the navigation tasks. A special case of a single-UGV, multi-destination navigation problem that is equivalent to the well-known Traveling Salesman Problem is discussed. The coverage hole patching process starts after a UGV reaches the hole boundary. For each hole boundary edge, a new node is added along its perpendicular bisector, and the entire hole is patched by adding nodes around the hole boundary edges. The communication complexity and present simulation examples and experimental results are analyzed. Then, a Java-based simulation testbed that is capable of simulating both the centralized and distributed sensor and actuator network algorithms is developed. The laboratory experiment demonstrates the navigation algorithm (single-UGV, single-destination) using Cricket wireless sensors and an actuator network and Pioneer 3-DX robot

Design and Performance Analysis of Genetic Algorithms for Topology Control Problems

In this dissertation, we present a bio-inspired decentralized topology control mechanism, called force-based genetic algorithm (FGA), where a genetic algorithm (GA) is run by each autonomous mobile node to achieve a uniform spread of mobile nodes and to provide a fully connected network over an unknown area. We present a formal analysis of FGA in terms of convergence speed, uniformity at area coverage, and Lyapunov stability theorem. This dissertation emphasizes the use of mobile nodes to achieve a uniform distribution over an unknown terrain without a priori information and a central control unit. In contrast, each mobile node running our FGA has to make its own movement direction and speed decisions based on local neighborhood information, such as obstacles and the number of neighbors, without a centralized control unit or global knowledge. We have implemented simulation software in Java and developed four different testbeds to study the effectiveness of different GA-based topology control frameworks for network performance metrics including node density, speed, and the number of generations that GAs run. The stochastic behavior of FGA, like all GA-based approaches, makes it difficult to analyze its convergence speed. We built metrically transitive homogeneous and inhomogeneous Markov chain models to analyze the convergence of our FGA with respect to the communication ranges of mobile nodes and the total number of nodes in the system. The Dobrushin contraction coefficient of ergodicity is used for measuring convergence speed for homogeneous and inhomogeneous Markov chain models of our FGA. Furthermore, convergence characteristic analysis helps us to choose the nearoptimal values for communication range, the number of mobile nodes, and the mean node degree before sending autonomous mobile nodes to any mission. Our analytical and experimental results show that our FGA delivers promising results for uniform mobile node distribution over unknown terrains. Since our FGA adapts to local environment rapidly and does not require global network knowledge, it can be used as a real-time topology controller for commercial and military applications