Energy use and life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of drones for commercial package delivery.

ABSTRACT: The use of automated, unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) to deliver commercial packages is poised to become a new industry, significantly shifting energy use in the freight sector. Here we find the current practical range of multi-copters to be about 4 km with current battery technology, requiring a new network of urban warehouses or waystations as support. We show that, although drones consume less energy per package-km than delivery trucks, the additional warehouse energy required and the longer distances traveled by drones per package greatly increase the life-cycle impacts. Still, in most cases examined, the impacts of package delivery by small drone are lower than ground-based delivery. Results suggest that, if carefully deployed, drone-based delivery could reduce greenhouse gas emissi

SUBMITTER: Stolaroff JK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5811440 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature