Designing unmanned aerial vehicle networks for biological material transportation

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) may solve, or at least reduce, the negative impacts of road transport such as pollution or congestion. This study deals with the UAVs network design problem for biomedical material transportation in line with the Drone4Care project. We begin with a PESTEL analysis to provide an overview of the various macro-environmental factors to be taken into consideration. To specify the objectives of the project and identify the internal and external factors that are favourable and unfavourable to achieving those objectives, a SWOT analysis is also performed. The elevated issues are translated into a number of quantifiable scenario elements, containing the most plausible upcoming events impacting the future of UAVs network for biological material. The developed location model is applied to the city of Brussels and periphery, with associated market in terms of biomedical products flows (blood units or medical samples transported between hospitals, laboratories, and blood transfusion centres) in the context of separate case studies of scenario-based analysis. The experiments show that if the return to the launching base is required, the total distance is greater than if this constraint is relaxed. This is a crucial point regarding limited range of UAVs. The use of charging stations is thus useful to extend the mission ranges and gain market share. The results also show the possibility of gradually implementing the bases, without requiring any major changes such as to close a base.