Enhancing offshore parcel delivery efficiency through vessel-unmanned aerial vehicle collaborative routing

Yantong Li and Xingqi Wang

International Journal of Production Research, 2025, vol. 63, issue 10, 3485-3511

Abstract: Offshore oil and gas production is vital for global energy supply, but it faces logistical challenges due to the high costs and inefficiencies of traditional supply methods. This paper introduces the vessel-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) routing problem with multiple visits in a single flight (VURP-M), a novel logistical model that addresses aimed at enhancing the replenishment of offshore platforms with small, essential items. The VURP-M allows the UAV to perform multiple visits during a single flight, optimising the delivery process. To tackle the VURP-M, we propose two mixed-integer second-order cone programs that capture the problem's complexities. Given its NP-hard nature, we employ an adaptive large neighbourhood search (ALNS) method, featuring a segmented initialisation process and problem-specific operators guided by a rule-based mechanism to improve solution efficiency. The ALNS formulates an initial solution by solving a travelling salesman problem to create a giant tour, which is then used to group sequential targets into multiple UAV flights. The subsequent optimal resolution of a SOCP determines the take-off and landing points for each flight. Subsequently, the ALNS refines the initial solution through destroy and repair operators, enhancing the search for superior sequences and allocation schemes. The effectiveness of our approach is demonstrated through a real-world case study and numerical experiments on random instances featuring up to 100 platforms. The results offer implications of the collaborative vessel-UAV model for the offshore logistics industry.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/00207543.2024.2422818

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