Hydrogen Fuel Cell Drones Against Battery Drones: Last Mile Delivery Perspective
Abstract
Hydrogen fuel cells are an abundant and cleaner source of energy, making them an attractive option for powering transportation systems. Hydrogen fuel cell drones are a new type of drone that generates energy from fuel cells for flight and expels heat and water vapor as byproducts. Compared to battery-powered drones, hydrogen fuel cell drones have better endurance and payload capacity due to their higher energy density, making them more efficient for eCommerce delivery. This research compares the performance of hydrogen and battery delivery drones for both droneonly and truck-drone last-mile delivery systems. A mixed integer programming model has been formulated to minimize the total delivery time for small to medium customer instances using the two-echelon vehicle routing problem, where drones are launched from the truck to serve one or more customers. The study conducted a comparative analysis by varying different parameters of drones on multiple sets of customer instances from real-world data to determine the best choice of drones for different scenarios. The results of the analysis show that hydrogen fuel cell drones have significant delivery advantages over typical battery drones in terms of delivery time and efficiency. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis was conducted to demonstrate the impacts of different parameters on the objective function of the delivery systems.
Degree
M.Sc.
Advisors
Lee, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Aerospace engineering|Alternative Energy|Chemical engineering|Civil engineering|Economics|Energy|Environmental management|Operations research|Recreation|Robotics|Transportation
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