Workshop on Metaheuristics: Truck and Drone Challenge
Join us for an exciting optimization competition leading up to the Workshop on Metaheuristics on February 10th!
Main content
Center of Data Science, Energy Informatics and Optimization group at the Department of Informatics join forces to host an exciting event starting in January 2026, leading up to a Workshop with a final competition on 10 February in 2026.
How the challenge works
Four weeks before the workshop, we’ll release a set of truck-and-drone last-mile delivery problem instances on our Optimization Gamification Platform.
Participants can submit solutions anytime—the platform will evaluate them automatically and keep a live scoreboard updated in real time.
Full details and rules will be available in our Discord.
The workshop
The worskshop will be in Nygårdsgaten 5, Bergen. Registration for the Workshop will open later.
On February 10th, during the workshop, new instances of the same problem will
be revealed. The best teams on the scoreboard will win prizes.
At the workshop, invited speakers will introduce metaheuristics and show how
these powerful techniques can solve large, complex optimization problems.
The invited speakers
We will update the list of speakers.
The mission
The truck acts as a mobile hub—carrying drones, launching them to serve nearby customers, and retrieving them at later stops.
You must determine:
- which customers are served by the truck or by drones,
- the order of the truck's stops,
- and the launch/return points for each drone,
...all while respecting drone flight limits and keeping truck-drone movements synchronized.
The goal: Minimize total customer waiting time (sum of arrival times) by coordinating truck and drone operations as efficiently as possible.
Get ready, Get creative, Optimize
