Drone delivery schedule optimization considering the reliability of drones

We consider a delivery network using drones. Drones can fail during the flight and such drone failures can result in loss of demand and consumer satisfaction. Therefore, we consider the reliability of drones in a delivery network to minimize expected loss of demand (ELOD). The more reliable the network is, the less amount of demand will be lost. We assume drone failures follow an exponential distribution. A two-stage programming is proposed: the first stage provides a pool solution of feasible paths and the second stage provides the most reliable scheduling. The proposed procedure is implemented for a case study and the results show the impact of including reliability in drone scheduling.