Optimization of the Regional Placement of the Mobile Division Bases of the Commercial Drone Company by Means of the Combinatory Method

Abstract

The problem of optimizing of the number and geographical location of mobile units of a commercial company of unmanned aircraft vehicles (drones) services, which provide aerial observation and/or aerial mapping services to the relevant customers and facilities on the territory of the region assigned to them. The efficiency criteria and initial conditions are determined. The optimization task is assigned as a Boolean programming task. When choosing the initial conditions, the potentially possible locations of the mobile units are analysed taking into account the geography of the region, the specifics of the weather conditions and of the facilities for the air service delivery. The combinatory method is proposed for solving the optimization task. The difference between the proposed method for solving the given problem and the previously published linear programming method is that, firstly, there are no restrictions on the number of customers assigned to each mobile unit base, and secondly, the method gives optimal, and not suboptimal solutions. The method was applied for optimization of the number of mobile units bases, their locations and attaching customers to them for a real Costa Rican company.