On-drone decision making for service delivery: concept and simulation

We imagine drone service providers where one can phone-a-drone to provide a service (e.g., rent a drone to check out something, or for two minutes to take an interesting photo). There are different types of drone services that can be implemented in different scenarios. For example, a drone can act as a security guard to protect someone walking home alone at night or a drone can act as a flying camera that can be rented simply by calling the drone to come to a given location to take photos or videos. This paper aims to study the trade-off between maximising provider revenue and maximising clients satisfaction in the context of drone services, which we argue do not necessarily concur. We have considered possible drone strategies and identified common factors that may affect the decision-making process. The research has implications for service providers - e.g., a service provider should aim to address high rates of requests but not at the cost of disappointing clients.