“Last Mile Delivery” is the most costly and least efficient part of the entire logistics system. There are more than 20 billion express packages every year in China. With the demand for logistics exploding rapidly, how to improve the “Last Mile Delivery” in the current logistic infrastructure has become the key to success in the eCommerce industry.
By leveraging the computing capabilities of Alibaba Cloud, and promoting the artificial intelligence and autonomous driving technology research at Alibaba DAMO Academy, Alibaba has developed solutions that address specific driving scenarios. Besides Alibaba built a platform with a refined scenarios database that offers a high level of data granularity.
As autonomous driving algorithms improved, the collaborative design of hardware and software received more attention within Alibaba. The product development of an artificial intelligent autonomous delivery robot, named Little G, came to the realization.
The product development of artificial intelligent autonomous delivery robots started with systematic research and analysis of the scenarios, users, environments, and goods in the delivery process.
In the process of product design, LCCER SCM held user-centered principles in the product design and optimized the product design for manufacturing with a balanced consideration of the Alibaba brand attributes, industry attributes, product future maintenance and upgrade.
In the process of product development, how to find the best balance between product design and hardware stacking is the key. The selection of sensors and the development of hardware are determined to enable the robot to carry out efficient route planning and avoid complex obstacles during the travel process, while also ensuring a compact and simple appearance.
First, the user only needs to make an appointment for express delivery on the APP. Little G can obtain the address information of the user's express package through the RFID system. Then automatically plan the route, transfer the elevator to the user's office.
Second, compared with similar AGV robots, Cainiao Little G realizes true autonomous work through multi-sensor fusion positioning, SLAM/environment reconstruction, pedestrian-vehicle recognition and dynamic obstacle avoidance, dynamic motion planning, and other technologies;
Third, the product design is more affinity. And the integration of design and functional modules enhances the user experience.
The finished Artificial Intelligent Autonomous Delivery Robot has been put on the market and unveiled at various intelligent exhibitions. It has received great attention from domestic and foreign media. Currently, the Cainiao Little G robot has been running in the Alibaba Hangzhou headquarter and delivering packages to Alibaba employees. It has also become the first fully autonomous delivery robot in the logistics industry and a benchmark in the industry.
