Optimal Cruise Speeds and Environmental Effects on Energy Consumption of Multirotor UAVs for Last-Mile Delivery

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly recognized as a viable option for urban parcel delivery. However, their energy performance under varying environmental and mission conditions remains underexplored. This paper presents a simulation-based analysis of multirotor UAV energy consumption using the PX4-Gazebo platform, calibrated with real-world telemetry from a publicly available DJI Matrice 100 dataset [12]. Three UAV models—Iris, Typhoon H480, and Octocopter—were evaluated across a range of payloads (0.1–5 kg), cruise speeds (2–16 m/s), and environmental factors, including wind, temperature, and humidity. Results revealed consistent U-shaped energy speed curves, with optimal cruise speeds ranging from 8 to 10 m/s, depending on the payload and platform. Headwinds alone increased energy consumption by up to 25% and combined cold–dry and headwind conditions resulted in increases of up to 53% for lightweight platforms. Validation against field telemetry showed mean absolute percentage errors below 11%. These findings offer a simulation-grounded framework for UAV mission planning, platform selection, and integration into energy-efficient logistics networks, and development of data-driven optimization frameworks. The three platforms span a 10-fold mass range (1.4–14 kg), enabling systematic analysis of how energy scaling behavior varies across lightweight, mid-range, and heavy-lift delivery configurations.