Funded Projects – 2025

Abstract: There is a critical global need for governmental, non-profit, and commercial entities to address the growing strain on last-mile logistics, which is one of the most time-consuming, expensive and polluting segments of the supply chain. The efficient integration of emerging logistics technologies, namely Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs or drones) and electric trucks (EV (Electric Vehicles) / Trucks), could transform last-mile distribution to be environmentally friendly, cost-effective, reliable and fast. Currently, there is no scalable route management technology that accounts for real-world constraints and unique characteristics of EV trucks and UAVs. Our project involves the development and validation of  RoutePEARL (Route Planner for Efficient Aerial and Road Logistics) – a cloud-based route optimization platform for trucks (including EV trucks) and UAVs or drones.  Our team perform field experiments to validate the efficiency, safety and reliability of the algorithms. Building on the insights from the field experiments, we will develop a functional RoutePEARL platform that will be pilot tested under real-world scenarios.