9 pages, 7 figures. This is an accepted paper and it is going to appear in the Proceedings of the 2021 IEEE International Conference on Collaboration and Internet Computing (CIC 2021)
Service delivery is set to experience a major paradigm shift with fast advances in drone technologies coupled with higher expectations from customers and increased competition. We propose a novel service-oriented approach to enable the ubiquitous delivery of packages in a drone-operated skyway network. We discuss the benefits, framework and architecture, contemporary approaches, open challenges and future visioned directions of service-based drone deliveries.
Current drone delivery systems mostly focus on point-to-point package delivery. We present a multi-stop drone service system to deliver packages anywhere anytime within a specified geographic area. We define a skyway network which takes into account flying regulations, including restricted areas and no-fly zones. The skyway nodes typically represent building rooftops which may act as both recharging stations and delivery destinations. A heuristic-based A* algorithm is used to compute an optimal path from source to destination taking into account a number of constraints, including delivery time…
Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology（蔚山科学技术院）
Drones have a fairly short range due to their limited battery life. We propose an adaptive exploration techniques to extend the range of drones by taking advantage of physical structures such as tall buildings and trees in urban environments. Our goal is to extend the coverage of a drone delivery service by generating paths for a drone to reach its destination while learning about the energy consumption on each edge on its path in order to optimize its range for future missions. We evaluated the performance of our exploration strategy in finding the set of all reachable destinations in a city,…
We propose a novel framework for swarm-based drone delivery services with in-flight energy recharging. The framework aims to enhance the delivery time of multiple packages by reducing the number of stops and recharging times at intermediate stations. The proposed framework considers various intrinsic and extrinsic delivery constraints. We propose to use support drones whose sole purpose is to recharge other drones in the swarm during their flight. In this respect, we compute the optimal set of optimal support drones to minimize the probability of delivery services and recharging time at the ne…
In this work, we present a system that enables delivery drones to autonomously navigate and deliver packages at various locations around a house according to the desire of the recipient and without the need for any external markers as currently used. This development is motivated by recent advancements in deep learning that can potentially supplant the specialized markers presently used by delivery drones for identifying sites at which to deliver packages. The proposed system is more natural in that it takes instruction on where to deliver the package as input, similar to the instructions prov…
Missouri Univ. of Science and Technology（密苏里科技大学）；Sapienza Univ. of Rome（罗马大学）；Univ. of Perugia（佩鲁贾大学）
In this paper, we study the feasibility of sending drones to deliver goods from a depot to a customer by solving what we call the Mission-Feasibility Problem (MFP). Due to payload constraints, the drone can serve only one customer at a time. To this end, we propose a novel framework based on time-dependent cost graphs to properly model the MFP and tackle the delivery dynamics. When the drone moves in the delivery area, the global wind may change thereby affecting the drone's energy consumption, which in turn can increase or decrease. This issue is addressed by designing three algorithms, namel…
Current drone delivery solutions mainly focus on single package delivery using one drone. However, the recent developments in drone technology enable a drone to deliver multiple packages in a single trip. We use the nearest destination first strategy for the faster delivery of packages in a skyway network. This demonstration is a proof-of-concept prototype for the multi-package delivery in urban airspace following a skyway network. We deploy and test this multi-package drone delivery in an indoor testbed environment using a 3D model of Sydney CBD. Demo: https://youtu.be/YTwsIfUvWPc
Drones are becoming a novel means for delivery services. We present a demonstration of drone delivery services in a skyway network that uses the service paradigm. A set of experiments is conducted using Crazyflie drones to collect the data on various positions of drones, wind speed, wind direction, and battery consumption. We run the experiments for a range of flight patterns including linear, rectangular, and triangular shapes.
The University of Sydney（悉尼大学）；Curtin University（科廷大学）
We propose a novel robust composition framework for drone delivery services considering changes in the wind patterns in urban areas. The proposed framework incorporates the dynamic arrival of drone services at the recharging stations. We propose a Probabilistic Forward Search (PFS) algorithm to select and compose the best drone delivery services under uncertainty. A set of experiments with a real drone dataset is conducted to illustrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approach.
We propose a novel service-oriented architecture for drone-based multi-package delivery in a skyway network. The proposed architecture provides a high-level design for deploying a skyway network in a city for the effective provisioning of drone services. We propose a graph-based heuristic to reduce the search space for optimal service selection in the skyway network. We then find an optimal solution using the selected drone services under a set of constraints. We conduct experiments to demonstrate the efficiency of our proposed approach.
Drone susceptibility to jamming or spoofing attacks of GPS, RF, Wi-Fi, and operator signals presents a danger to future medical delivery systems. A detection framework capable of sensing attacks on drones could provide the capability for active responses. The identification of interference attacks has applicability in medical delivery, disaster zone relief, and FAA enforcement against illegal jamming activities. A gap exists in the literature for solo or swarm-based drones to identify radio frequency spectrum attacks. Any non-delivery specific function, such as attack sensing, added to a drone…
Drone swarms are required for the simultaneous delivery of multiple packages. We demonstrate a multi-stop drone swarm-based delivery in a smart city. We leverage formation flying to conserve energy and increase the flight range of a drone swarm. An adaptive formation is presented in which a swarm adjusts to extrinsic constraints and changes the formation pattern in-flight. We utilize the existing building rooftops in a city and build a line-of-sight skyway network to safely operate the swarms. We use a heuristic-based A* algorithm to route a drone swarm in a skyway network.
Currently, drone research and development has received significant attention worldwide. Particularly, delivery services employ drones as it is a viable method to improve delivery efficiency by using a several unmanned drones. Research has been conducted to realize complete automation of drone control for such services. However, regarding the takeoff and landing port of the drones, conventional methods have focused on the landing operation of a single drone, and the continuous landing of multiple drones has not been realized. To address this issue, we propose a completely novel port system, "EA…
We consider the problem of controlling a large fleet of drones to deliver packages simultaneously across broad urban areas. To conserve energy, drones hop between public transit vehicles (e.g., buses and trams). We design a comprehensive algorithmic framework that strives to minimize the maximum time to complete any delivery. We address the multifaceted complexity of the problem through a two-layer approach. First, the upper layer assigns drones to package delivery sequences with a near-optimal polynomial-time task allocation algorithm. Then, the lower layer executes the allocation by periodic…
We propose a novel framework for the recommendation of swarm-based drone delivery services based on the consumers preferences. We propose a density-based pruning approach that uses the concept of partnerships with charging station providers to reduce the search space of swarm-based drone service delivery providers. A weighted service composition algorithm is proposed that considers the providers capabilities and consumers' preferences in selecting the best next service. We propose a voting-based recommendation algorithm to select the best providers. We conduct a set of experiments to evaluate …
Swarm of drones are increasingly being asked to carry out missions that can't be completed by one drone. Particularly, in delivery, issues arise due to the swarm's limited flight endurance. Hence, we propose a novel formation-guided framework for selecting Swarm-based Drone-as-a-Service (SDaaS) for delivery. A detailed study is carried out to highlight the effect of swarm formations on energy consumption. Two SDaaS selection approaches, i.e. Fixed and Adaptive, are designed considering the different formation decisions a swarm can take. The proposed framework considers extrinsic constraints in…
A concept of drone launched short range rockets (DLSRR) is presented. A drone or an aircraft rises DLSRR to a release altitude of up to 20 $km$. At the release altitude, the drone or an aircraft is moving at a velocity of up to 700 $m/s$ and a steep angle of up to 68$^o$ to the horizontal. After DLSRRs are released, their motors start firing. DLSRRs use slow burning motors to gain altitude and velocity. At the apogee of their flight DLSRRs release projectiles which fly to the target and strike it at high impact velocity. The projectiles reach a target at ranges of up to 442 $km$ and impact vel…
Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology（斯科尔科沃科学技术研究院）
We report on the teleoperation system DronePick which provides remote object picking and delivery by a human-controlled quadcopter. The main novelty of the proposed system is that the human user continuously gets the visual and haptic feedback for accurate teleoperation. DronePick consists of a quadcopter equipped with a magnetic grabber, a tactile glove with finger motion tracking sensor, hand tracking system, and the Virtual Reality (VR) application. The human operator teleoperates the quadcopter by changing the position of the hand. The proposed vibrotactile patterns representing the locati…
Drones have been considered as an alternative means of package delivery to reduce the delivery cost and time. Due to the battery limitations, the drones are best suited for last-mile delivery, i.e., the delivery from the package distribution centers (PDCs) to the customers. Since a typical delivery system consists of multiple PDCs, each having random and time-varying demands, the dynamic drone-to-PDC allocation would be of great importance in meeting the demand in an efficient manner. In this paper, we study the dynamic UAV assignment problem for a drone delivery system with the goal of provid…
In this article, a novel drone skyway framework called CORRIDRONE is proposed. As the name suggests, this represents virtual air corridors for point-to-point safe passage of multiple drones. The corridors are not permanent but can be set up on demand. A few such scenarios could be those in warehouse/factory floors, package delivery, shore-to-ship delivery, border patrol, etc. Several factors play major roles in the planning and design of such aerial passages. The proposed framework includes many novel features which aid safe and efficient integration of UAVs into the airspace with already avai…
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne（洛桑联邦理工学院）；The University of Electro-Communications（电气通信大学）；Wageningen University and Research（瓦赫宁根大学及研究中心）
Drones have shown to be useful aerial vehicles for unmanned transport missions such as food and medical supply delivery. This can be leveraged to deliver life-saving nutrition and medicine for people in emergency situations. However, commercial drones can generally only carry 10 % - 30 % of their own mass as payload, which limits the amount of food delivery in a single flight. One novel solution to noticeably increase the food-carrying ratio of a drone, is recreating some structures of a drone, such as the wings, with edible materials. We thus propose a drone, which is no longer only a food tr…
Grasping and releasing objects would cause oscillations to delivery drones in the warehouse. To reduce such undesired oscillations, this paper treats the to-be-delivered object as an unknown external disturbance and presents an image-based disturbance observer (DOB) to estimate and reject such disturbance. Different from the existing DOB technique that can only compensate for the disturbance after the oscillations happen, the proposed image-based one incorporates image-based disturbance prediction into the control loop to further improve the performance of the DOB. The proposed image-based DOB…
Enabling High-Frequency Cross-Modality Visual Positioning Service for Accurate Drone Landing
Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University, China（清华大学深圳国际研究生院）；Carnegie Mellon University, USA（卡内基梅隆大学）；Meituan Academy of Robotics Shenzhen and Meituan Inc., China（美团机器人深圳研究院和美团公司）；Shenzhen Institute for Advanced Study, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Shenzhen, China（电子科技大学深圳研究院）；School of Software and BNRist, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China（软件学院和BNRist，清华大学，北京100084，中国）
Landing is the most challenging and risky aspect of multirotor drone flight, and only simple landing methods exist for autonomous drones. We explore methods for autonomous drone landing in two scenarios. In the first scenario, we examine methods for landing on known landing pads using fiducial markers and a gimbal-mounted monocular camera. This method has potential in drone applications where a drone must land more accurately than GPS can provide (e.g.~package delivery in an urban canyon). We expand on previous methods by actuating the drone's camera to track the marker over time, and we addre…
TU Dortmund University（多特蒙德工业大学）；Communication Networks Institute（通信网络研究所）
The integration of small-scale Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) into Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs) will empower novel smart-city applications and services. After the unforeseen outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the public demand for delivery services has multiplied. Mobile robotic systems inherently offer the potential for minimizing the amount of direct human-to-human interactions with the parcel delivery process. The proposed system-of-systems consists of various complex aspects such as assigning and distributing delivery jobs, establishing and maintaining reliable communication …
The Internet of Drones (IoD) is a layered network control architecture designed mainly for coordinating the access of unmanned aerial vehicles to controlled airspace, and providing navigation services between locations referred to as nodes. The IoD provides generic services for various drone applications such as package delivery, traffic surveillance, search and rescue and more. In this paper, we present a conceptual model of how such an architecture can be organized and we specify the features that an IoD system based on our architecture should implement. For doing so, we extract key concepts…
We demonstrate formation flying for drone swarm services. A set of drones fly in four different swarm formations. A dataset is collected to study the effect of formation flying on energy consumption. We conduct a set of experiments to study the effect of wind on formation flying. We examine the forces the drones exert on each other when flying in a formation. We finally identify and classify the formations that conserve most energy under varying wind conditions. The collected dataset aims at providing researchers data to conduct further research in swarm-based drone service delivery. Demo: htt…
Qatar Mobility Innovation Center (QMIC)（卡塔尔移动创新中心）；Qatar University（卡塔尔大学）
The rapid outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic invoked scientists and researchers to prepare the world for future disasters. During the pandemic, global authorities on healthcare urged the importance of disinfection of objects and surfaces. To implement efficient and safe disinfection services during the pandemic, robots have been utilized for indoor assets. In this paper, we envision the use of drones for disinfection of outdoor assets in hospitals and other facilities. Such heterogeneous assets may have different service demands (e.g., service time, quantity of the disinfectant material etc.), wher…
Carnegie Mellon University（卡内基梅隆大学）；University of Pennsylvania（宾夕法尼亚大学）；Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW)（巴登-符腾堡合作州立大学（DHBW））
We autonomously direct a small quadcopter package delivery Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or "drone" to take off, fly a specified route, and land for a total of 209 flights while varying a set of operational parameters. The vehicle was equipped with onboard sensors, including GPS, IMU, voltage and current sensors, and an ultrasonic anemometer, to collect high-resolution data on the inertial states, wind speed, and power consumption. Operational parameters, such as commanded ground speed, payload, and cruise altitude, are varied for each flight. This large data set has a total flight time of 10 …
Drones have become a common tool, which is utilized in many tasks such as aerial photography, surveillance, and delivery. However, operating a drone requires more and more interaction with the user. A natural and safe method for Human-Drone Interaction (HDI) is using gestures. In this paper, we introduce an HDI framework building upon skeleton-based pose estimation. Our framework provides the functionality to control the movement of the drone with simple arm gestures and to follow the user while keeping a safe distance. We also propose a monocular distance estimation method, which is entirely …
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais（米纳斯吉拉斯联邦大学）；Instituto Tecnológico Vale (ITV)（淡水河谷技术研究所）
The use of delivery services is an increasing trend worldwide, further enhanced by the COVID pandemic. In this context, drone delivery systems are of great interest as they may allow for faster and cheaper deliveries. This paper presents a navigation system that makes feasible the delivery of parcels with autonomous drones. The system generates a path between a start and a final point and controls the drone to follow this path based on its localization obtained through GPS, 9DoF IMU, and barometer. In the landing phase, information of poses estimated by a marker (ArUco) detection technique usi…
We present a demonstration of service-based trajectory planning for a drone delivery system in a multi-drone skyway network. We conduct several experiments using Crazyflie drones to collect the drone's position data, wind speed and direction, and wind effects on voltage consumption rates. The experiments are run for a varying number of recharging stations, wind speed, and wind direction in a multi-drone skyway network. Demo: https://youtu.be/zEwqdtEmmiw
