Abstract Instant delivery by ground vehicles combined with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will greatly expand its coverage range while expanding its application. In this paper, a novel operation scheme with vehicles and UAVs for instant delivery is presented. This scheme consists of four key processes: the locations of vehicle stops, the allocation of customers to vehicle stops, the allocation of customers to UAVs, and route planning for vehicles. We formulate a capacitated set covering location model to determine the number and feasible locations of vehicle stops. Moreover, we present a multilevel model to optimize the decisions on the remaining processes and finally determine the locations of vehicle stops while minimizing the number of vehicles dispatched and the total travel time. Furthermore, we propose two advanced ant colony optimization (ACO) by introducing variable visibility and multilevel feedback pheromones. Experiments are applied to prove the effectiveness of the operation scheme with vehicles and UAVs.

中文翻译：

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一种即时交付的车载无人机操作方案

摘要 地面车辆与无人机（UAV）相结合的即时交付将在扩大其应用范围的同时大大扩大其覆盖范围。在本文中，提出了一种新型的车辆和无人机即时交付操作方案。该方案包括四个关键流程：车辆停靠点的位置、车辆停靠点的客户分配、无人机的客户分配和车辆的路线规划。我们制定了一个有能力的集合覆盖位置模型来确定车辆停靠的数量和可行位置。此外，我们提出了一个多级模型来优化剩余流程的决策，最终确定车辆停靠的位置，同时最小化调度的车辆数量和总旅行时间。此外，我们通过引入可变可见性和多级反馈信息素提出了两种先进的蚁群优化 (ACO)。应用实验证明了该操作方案对车辆和无人机的有效性。