Drone-Enabled Practices in Modern Warehouse Management: A Comprehensive Review

Abstract

Highlights: What are the main findings? This study builds a clear taxonomy of warehouse-drone research (tasks, platforms, single vs multi-drone systems, simulation vs real-world validation, AI/IoT stack). The main application areas (inventory and mapping, inspection/maintenance, intralogistics transport/support, security/surveillance, picking support, layout optimization) are mapped. What are the implications of the main findings? The maturity gap is revealed: research is still single-UAV and simulation-heavy, with few fully autonomous real-warehouse deployments. The key gaps cited are highlighted: multi-drone coordination/safety remains unresolved, and dynamic warehouse environments are under-studied. The advent of drone technology has led to groundbreaking advancements across various industries, including warehousing operations. In recent years, warehouse drones have garnered significant attention due to their potential to revolutionize traditional inventory management and order fulfillment processes. This paper presents a comprehensive review that synthesizes findings from more than 120 research papers on drone-enabled practices in warehouses. The review systematically considers multiple parameters, including drone function (inventory counting, mapping, surveillance, inspection, and intralogistics support), robot platforms used (UAV, UAV-AGV), deployment architecture (single and multi-drone system), validation approach (real-time and simulation), technology and methodology used (modern electronic devices, AI, and IOT), and environmental context (dynamic and static). Furthermore, the paper explores the diverse applications of warehouse drones in inventory management, maintenance and inspection, picking and packaging, goods transportation, security and surveillance, and warehouse layout optimization. The review highlights that most studies still rely on single-UAV systems tested mainly in simulations, with only a few real-time demonstrations of fully autonomous performance inside real warehouses. Although multi-drone approaches are emerging to improve scalability, they continue to struggle with coordination and safety. Research remains largely focused on static environments, with dynamic warehouse conditions receiving far less attention despite their practical importance. The findings of the review are presented with the tabulated results and a comparative table to provide a better understanding of the review work, which helps to identify the existing literature gap. The review presents its findings through clear tables and comparisons, making it easier to understand existing studies and pinpoint the gaps in the current literature.