Concepts for cargo ground handling of unmanned cargo aircrafts and their influence on the supply chain

Abstract

The steadily growing share of air freight transport in the entire logistics industry is mainly due to the three major advantages of speed, safety and reliability. To meet the rising demands, automated transport and delivery processes are increasingly used. As part of the DLR (German Aerospace Center) research project Automated Low Altitude Delivery (ALAADy), a fully automated Unmanned Cargo Aircraft (UCA) with a payload of one ton under the precondition of the Minimum Risk Configuration is being developed in cooperation with seven DLR institutes. As a general area of application, the UCA is appropriate for the so-called penultimate mile in the air freight logistics chain, but in order to create optimal integration in the supply chain, the main focus is on the important link of the loading, unloading or reloading processes. The theoretical and practical concepts of this topic were examined within the study under the premise that - No infrastructure exits at destination - in order to obtain the most automated process possible for future logistics. Against this background and the still existing logistics problem of the last mile, an UCA requires an automated delivery system. An example of this could be a robotic container based on the units of measurement widely used in logistics. It could be used both for inner-city consignments and for the delivery of goods in rough terrain. Our study shows that the interaction between an UCA and an automated robotic container-system solves both problems of the penultimate and the last mile within the logistics chain. Furthermore, the concepts of ground handling and the development of unmanned systems, including their present capabilities, were studied theoretically to design a model representing basic ground handling processes of Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles (UAVs). The intention was to create a base for further research on this matter by targeting the key requirements for ground handling processes of UCAs in the given concepts. We found out that our obtained findings, approaches for an automated turnaround of an UAV can therefore serve as a basis for future analyses in UCA ground handling and last miles logistics.