Testing quantum and simulated annealers on the drone delivery packing problem

The drone delivery packing problem assigns deliveries under location, timing, and battery constraints while minimizing the number of drones required. This combinatorial structure makes the problem a candidate for annealing-based optimization.

The authors derive two quadratic unconstrained binary optimization formulations, allowing the same delivery problem to be evaluated with quantum and simulated annealers. Extensive experiments compare these methods with classical commercial global-optimization tools.

The study identifies both advantages and practical limitations of current quantum annealers on this logistics problem, providing a controlled assessment rather than assuming a general quantum advantage.

Paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42484-026-00362-z