Our City Science led consortium has secured funding from Innovate UK to embark on an ambitious research project: Computational Rationality for Distributed Airborne Delivery (GUAVA). This project develops a system to integrate distributed airbourne delivery vehicles into an end-to-end customer delivery proposition. Through this, we developed and demonstrated a detailed commercial aviation system model and AI capability building on the Alan Turing Institute’s BlueBird family of aviation simulation tools. Our solution was developed to accommodate fully electric and autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with a specific focus on deliveries.
Scope
Our solution built on consortium expertise within “Systemised Airspace Design” (SAD) to understand and evaluate future pre-set “three-dimensional networks” in the sky through which UAVs are expected to operate safely within urban environments. The system combined future airbourne network representations with comprehensive multi-modal ground-based freight networks to provide optimal routing schedules across the full spectrum of future electric and sustainable delivery modes. As a result, the project addressed the integration challenges of new air vehicles into both the aviation system and wider freight & logistics sector.
City Science Response
City Science collaborated with the University of Exeter, leveraging their expertise in cutting-edge research. Our joint effort drew upon previous successful collaborations on Innovate UK projects. With a focus on deliveries, the project explored both optimal network designs and operational routing across these future networks. Using a multitude of simulations, accommodating the sizing and weight characteristics of deliveries and the operational performance constraints of UAVs we created a system that can optimise deliveries considering the following factors:
- Operational cost
- Time to serve (customers)
- Energy use (by fuel type and electrical network need)
- Carbon emissions
- Air quality
Outcomes
The outcome of this project informed approaches to sustainable aviation and critical infrastructure gaps required to ensure sufficient renewable energy infrastructure to power these future systems. Detailed models of operational performance also helped explore new business models in sustainable logistics.