LogiSmile - 2nd year

Deliveries in metropolitan areas will increase dramatically over the next few years. Last-mile logistics are becoming increasingly frequent and more fragmented, especially with the exponential growth of e-commerce. The negative impact of current urban-centre logistics practices includes increased traffic, safety issues for road users including cyclists, delivery vehicles and pedestrians, as well as the emission of harmful air pollutants. In order to tackle all these challenges, a novel last-mile delivery system using autonomous vehicles for logistics operations was demonstrated in the first year of the LogiSmile project.

The cutting-edge autonomous delivery system consists of an autonomous hub vehicle (AHV) that works in cooperation with smaller autonomous delivery devices (ADD), which are coordinated by a back-end control centre. The ADD and AHV can be operated separately, depending on the needs of end-users. However, the main innovation in the project resides in the joint collaboration of the two robots, which has the potential to greatly decrease the operation costs of last-mile logistics.

This second stage of the LogiSmile project sees the consortium validating the integrated solution, including both robots cooperation on-site, in a new testbed in a different urban environment in the city of Braunschweig. The participation of a logistics operator in the piloting phase provides stronger commercial knowledge, ensuring a more business-oriented demonstration. In addition, the project will explore the autonomous delivery market status, main players and potential clients for the joint transportation management system solution, as well as their scalability plan for deploying and commercialising the service. During the second year of the project, a new start-up will be created to commercialise the back-end control centre needed for the safety and security of autonomous driving.