ARTICLE
31 August 2026

Research on Dynamic Path Planning for Urban Ground-Air Collaborative Delivery in Intelligent Networked Environments

Jun Zhao1 Wenyan Yu1
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1 Liaoning University of International Business and Economics, Dalian 116052, China
PBES 2026 , 9(8), 215–226; https://doi.org/10.18063/PBES.v9i8.15162
© 2026 by the Author(s). Licensee Whioce Publishing, Singapore. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

With the rapid implementation of intelligent networking and low-altitude logistics technology, ground-air collaborative distribution has become a new technological path to solve the bottleneck of end-of-pipe logistics distribution in urban and rural areas, thanks to its advantages of flexibility, efficiency, three-dimensional coverage, and dynamic adaptation. In response to the strong timeliness of delivering characteristic agricultural products in rural areas of Dalian, as well as the pain points of traditional vehicle delivery services such as large radius, high empty driving rate, and shortage of transportation capacity during peak hours, this paper takes rural logistics in Dalian as the research object, introduces the “vehicle drone” ground-air collaborative delivery mode, and conducts dynamic path planning optimization research in rural scenarios. Based on the spatial distribution characteristics of rural distribution customers, the DBSCAN clustering algorithm is used to aggregate and divide the demand nodes for village level distribution, and accurately locate the vehicle parking points based on the centroid of each clustering cluster. Simultaneously building a collaborative delivery scheduling model, solving and validating the model through improved ant colony algorithm. The research results indicate that DBSCAN clustering can effectively integrate village-level distribution nodes, significantly reducing the frequency of vehicle stops and detours. Compared to traditional bicycle delivery models, the two collaborative modes of “vehicle-drone” parallel delivery and portable delivery can effectively reduce comprehensive delivery costs and improve the operational efficiency of end-of-pipe delivery.

Keywords
Low altitude economy
Ground-air collaborative distribution
DBSCAN clustering
Funding
This study was based on the 2026 research project of the Chinese Society of Logistics, titled “Research on Dynamic Path Planning for Urban Ground-air Collaborative Delivery in Intelligent Networked Environment” (Project No. 2026CSLKT3-286).
References

[1] Bai Y, Li X, Qi M, 2026, Optimization of Joint Delivery Paths between Drones and Riders in Multi Center Networks. Journal of Shenzhen University (Science and Engineering Edition), 43(4): 397–406.

[2] Jiang Y, Zhang G, 2026, Comparative Study on E-commerce User Clustering Analysis Based on K-means and DBSCAN. Business Exhibition Economics, (15): 100–103.

[3] Jin K, Jia R, 2026, Research on Multi Truck UAV Collaborative Trajectory Optimization Based on UAV Exchange. Computer Science, 53(S1): 164–172.

[4] Zhang Y, 2026, Multi Center Electric Vehicle Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Collaborative Distribution Multi-Objective Path Decision-Making in Time-Varying Networks, thesis, Chongqing Jiaotong University.

[5] He Y, 2026, Research on the Planning of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Logistics Delivery Tasks in Urban Areas, thesis, Lanzhou University of Finance and Economics.

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