This paper aims to emphasize the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic at the healthcare logistics and supply chain networks and to transport polymerase chain reaction testing samples between hospitals and laboratories by using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). To achieve the mission, range and payload capacitated UAV routing problem is defined and a mixed-integer linear programming model (MILP) is developed. The MILP model aims to decide the requisite quantity of the UAVs and to minimize the total transportation distance while satisfying the predetermined constraints. As a real-life instance, the healthcare network of Istanbul is selected and the network includes 219 hospitals and 23-unit basic testing laboratories for the COVID-19 pandemic. The results indicated that the proposed optimization model can find the needed number of UAVs with the minimum tour distances in reasonable run times and achieves to transport 25,000 testing specimens between hospitals and laboratories via UAVs.
Transporting COVID-19 testing specimens by routing unmanned aerial vehicles with range and payload constraints: the case of Istanbul
Transportation Letters ; 13 , 5-6 ; 482-491
2021-05-28
10 pages
Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)
Elektronische Ressource
Unbekannt
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