A Multi-Visit Heterogeneous Drone Routing Model Considering Recharging Decision in Disaster

The complex nature of disasters has required communities and governments to implement plans to reduce the disturbing effects of these disasters. With the breakdown and destruction of road infrastructure in times of disaster, the need to use an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) fleet under the concept of humanitarian logistics has become increasingly essential. Therefore, we present a Multi-Visit Drone Routing Problem in this paper. The relief goods are delivered to the disaster-affected areas by using heterogeneous drones. We use a linear approximation function to calculate energy consumption. We formulated the proposed bi-objective Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model by a compromise programming method. To validate the proposed model and to show the model’s efficiency, we generate several test problems with the data extracted by experts. The computational results show the satisfactory performance of the model for the delivery of relief items to the damaged nodes by humanitarian drones in the shortest possible time.