Anais do Simpósio Brasileiro de Pesquisa Operacional
Anais do Simpósio Brasileiro de Pesquisa Operacional

In this article, the Drone-Assisted Traveling Salesman Problem (DATSP), a new context in which drones are used to extend a classic TSP, is explored. Drones travel unimpeded by traffic and can reach areas of difficult access, whereas other vehicles might not be able to do so. In this new paradigm, an obstacle, such as a river or a mountain, would hinder a company's delivery time to the other side of that obstacle. The drone would then fly repeatedly across it, carrying packages which are then delivered to the clients by a deliveryman. This research is motivated by a real life application, where an Icelandic company started using drones to deliver food across a bay. This operational problem inspired the DATSP, which is modeled mathematically as a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) problem in this article. Finally, instances were generated and solved with the solver GUROBI and their solutions were investigated.