Drone Delivery : Urban airspace traffic density estimation

The concept of autonomous drone delivery in urban areas has gained a favorable amount of media attention over the past few years. Companies such as Amazon, Uber and Matternet are investigating the use of drones to transport parcels in order to solve the disaggregate delivery (last-mile) problem. This solution could potentially reduce vehicular congestion in cities by replacing traditional transport modes used in last-mile delivery, such as trucks, vans and bikes, with a fleet of autonomous drones flying in an urban airspace. To realize this concept, the design of an urban airspace for drones is necessary. However, the design of an urban airspace for drones will depend on critical design metrics such as drone traffic densities, traffic distribution patterns, distance between origin-destination, and the number of distribution centers. For this study, we first tackle the first metric, drone traffic density. This metric will provide an indication for the required urban airspace capacity and its expected demand. This paper therefore establishes a framework for determining the traffic density of delivery drones for a typical urban city airspace in Europe. In addition, the paper presents a cost-analysis study for fast-food delivery via drones relative to electric bikes.