Automated freight system (invention and imagination)

Overview

The automated freight system is expected to achieve end-to-end automation, low energy consumption, and fast cargo transportation. This article mainly describes the express delivery business formed by e-commerce, but it also includes but is not limited to the transportation of goods from factories to factories and from factories to malls.

Target short-term target site to site transportation

In the short-term objective, the current railway and highway transportation systems are used to achieve:

• Automatic Sorting and loading of goods at the site
• Goods route formulation
• Goods tracking and feedback

For example, if an online shopper buys a dress and an e-commerce company submits a delivery ticket to a logistics company he is familiar with, the logistics company still uses manual methods to pick up the goods, sort and transport to the city's terminus.
Now the site in the city has scanned the goods and received the express delivery. the express delivery is placed in a specially crafted and appropriate box so that the box is associated with the express delivery, then the box is stored in the warehouse by the automatic sorting system, waiting for delivery.
In the background, the site communicates with the carrier's computer to inform the existing courier of a series of information such as the size, route, and time limit. The carrier configures its own transportation resources and thus develops the transportation route, the driver of the carrier receives the Instruction List and routes the train or vehicle to the site specified in the list. The Automatic Sorting System transfers the parcel to the container, and then the driver ships the container from one site to another, after the arrival, the automatic sorting system is responsible for unloading the entire container or extracting only a few boxes, then loading the new container or box and moving forward.
After the goods arrive at the final site, manually remove the box to take out the goods, and then manually send the goods to the destination. Finally, the online shoppers get the goods.

Medium-term objective automated transportation

In the medium-term goal, the system makes full use of the existing track system and the latest self-driving system to automate site-to-site transportation, achieving low energy consumption and Fast transportation.
A typical scenario is to use an existing railway system. The Automatically-controlled small vehicle head only needs to drag 1-3 short trains to the station according to the instructions of the carrier, and then the Automatic Sorting System unmounts and loads the goods, after completion, the small locomotive is transported to the specified location using the autonomous system.
Without human intervention, automated control of transport has the following benefits:

• 24-hour uninterrupted transportation to improve road network utilization;
• You can use 60 ~ 90 km/h, saving energy;
• The small carriage greatly reduces the damage to the infrastructure such as the roadbed and bridge, and also reduces the noise;
• The automated driving system reduces traffic accidents caused by manual driving.

Although the above advantages are more suitable for rail systems, they are also suitable for road transportation, road transportation can avoid peak periods, and sites are usually connected by highways, which also avoids the disadvantages of automatic driving.

Full-Process Automation of forward targets

The ultimate goal is to automate the entire logistics. For example, after an online shopper buys a product, the E-Commerce Server places an order with the logistics company, and the logistics company's server sets the route to determine the optimal route and time, A self-driving car enters the e-commerce warehouse.
Large e-businesses have their own sorting systems to automatically complete loading. Small e-businesses use the interactive system provided by the car to obtain the packaging box and put it into the parcel. If there is a problem, you can also use remote video connection manual tutoring.
The trolley delivers parcels to the site, which is saved to the warehouse by the sorting system. After that, the system automatically ships the data to the specified site in the middle. After that, the self-driving car will be distributed to the designated location. Of course, this involves the problem of whether the consignee is at home/Company, the Identity confirmation of the consignee, and whether the items are in good condition. This problem can be solved through the convenience stores that spread all over the world. In fact, the parcels are saved to the convenience store by the trolley, and the consignee is sent to the convenience store to complete the receipt and confirmation of the parcels.

Composition

In all of the following discussions, unless otherwise stated, all systems are distributed systems and there is no unique entry point.

Ticket Receiving System

The entire system is relatively large, but for users, they only need to deal with logistics companies.

{Figure 1}

The sender submits his/her own express waybill through the website and queries the logistics progress through this website. A more common method is that senders (such as e-commerce) usually integrate their systems with the order receiving system, and automatically generate a express order after the customer places the order.
The order receiving system is a system that deals with customers. It is responsible for receiving orders, querying progress, and settling with customers. He is also responsible for sending confirmed orders to the logistics system to start the entire transportation process. In addition, the status information returned by the transportation system is also received and the order status is updated.
The receiving system is not responsible for the transportation of parcels, such as automated transportation or manual delivery. It does not take responsibility for routes. He delivers this task to the logistics system.

Logistics System

The logistics system is responsible for the transportation of goods, which is part of the logistics company. The logistics company usually contains one or more sites, each site contains the Sorting System and warehouse, as well as its own means of transportation.

{Figure 2}

The warehouse is responsible for saving parcels and waiting for the appropriate time to be transported out. The Warehouse is maintained by the warehouse system. The sorting system is responsible for taking parcels from the warehouse into the container, or taking the goods from the container and storing them in the warehouse.
The vehicle scheduling system determines the current logistics company or external vehicle resources and other information, and then develops an optimal driving plan and issues it to the transportation system. The transportation system may adopt manual, automated transportation may also be used for transportation.
In the middle of the transportation, it may need to be changed to an external transportation company such as the railway to complete the task, but for the logistics system, it is black box, just need to issue instructions to the transportation system and receive the transportation status.

Other systems

A unified yellow page system must be provided for the completion of the entire logistics process. For example, the logistics system knows which transportation companies can provide services from one location to another, which sites can provide storage for temporary storage and how to connect to their servers for automatic inquiry and Determination of resources and other information.
The transportation system provides actual transportation management. Because of its single function, it is temporarily put into other systems.

Operational Standards Committee

The Standards Committee is funded by major logistics companies, cargo owners, and transportation companies. The Standards Committee is responsible:

• Boundaries and definitions of various systems;
• Develop computer interaction protocols for various business interactions;
• Defines specifications for the sizes and overlays of various boxes;
• Push CoreAlgorithmProgress;

The Standards Committee does not directly develop all software after determining the system components and protocols for interaction between them. However, it will actively promote software and hardware vendors to develop systems and set up bonuses for algorithm competitions, free Open-source algorithms and software are supported.

Split

As the beginning of the business, logistics companies accept express delivery fees. The logistics company interacts with other systems, and uses market-oriented methods such as inquiry and agreement prices to divide the data into non-highest-interest or management institutions.

Robustness

The construction of the entire system should consider:

• Each system is independent and has a clear division of labor, that is, it can be operated automatically or manually;
• Each system must be distributed to prevent bottlenecks caused by centralization of the central system;
• Each system must have a strong fault tolerance. For example, if a parcel is stolen in the middle, it can be detected in time and the entire container will not be shut down. Or when traffic is congested or even a site is destroyed by a flood, other systems will not be paralyzed.

About

• Author: Shao min
• Email: tansm@msn.com

This article is published in: https://github.com/tansm/AutoLogisticsSystem

V0.1
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