mas

multi-agent systems

Unfortunately, there is a big gap, maybe a chasm, between MAS academic and industry research and development. I often see the academy struggling to find meaning for the studies and the industry struggling to create solutions that were already well discussed in the academy and sometimes solved in the way it is needed. Therefore, I am always trying to associate the real-life technologies with the theories I am reading at academy. Here I am pointing out some applications that are MAS but are not often seen like agent systems.

Modern industrial warehouses

• Cainiao a tech company that develops logistic solutions is developing robots with swarm intelligence. The company has equipped an Alibaba warehouse with over 700 robots. As shown in this video published in 2017, autonomous vehicles (AVG) move shelves around the warehouse taking product stacks to employees that can easily pick what they need releasing the robot to take the shelve back. AVG communicate with each other to avoid collision and go automatically to recharging cradles.

• JD.com, the major competitor of Alibaba published some videos with concepts for full-link automated logistics processes. This animation published in 2016 shows fully automated processes of receiving goods, scanning and unpacking products. Later crates loaded with goods go to replenishment areas where they are stored by robots. When the good is required the same robots retrieve the crate placing them in the conveyor belt. Other robots pick the required units of the goods filling boxes to attend orders. Finally, after boxing and tagging orders, each box is driven to the appropriate conveyor branch to be loaded into the truck. Another animation shows a slightly different approach for storing and retrieving products, in this case not using crane but pallets. Finally, this video shows that still in 2016 JD.com was not far from their plans.

• Other examples of high automated logistics are presented in Porcelanosa and in Hermes warehouses.