Study on route optimization of truck-UAV joint distribution considering spatio-temporal clustering

By taking advantage of the low cost and high flexibility of UAV, the "truck-UAV" joint distribution mode is considered to be introduced into the logistics "last kilometer" distribution. Considering the limitations of UAV such as endurance and load capacity, and considering the customer demand exceeding the load of UAV and time window requirements, the "truck-UAV" joint distribution optimization model is built with the minimum total operating cost as the goal. According to the characteristics of the problem, spatio-temporal clustering is introduced, and a two-stage solution method is proposed. The effectiveness of the algorithm is verified by different scale examples. The results show that the proposed distribution scheme can effectively reduce the logistics cost of the traditional distribution mode, and provide a theoretical basis for the optimization of the distribution scheme of logistics enterprises. The research results enrich the research of truck - UAV joint delivery problem with time window.