Building Blocks

We don’t need to sit around and wait for exciting new discoveries or for battery technology to evolve enough to give us another 50% storage density as do some “green” initiatives. Everything we need to build what is described in the previous sections is readily available “off the shelf” – albeit in component form rather than a complete and working system.

Here we briefly list some of the most important building blocks – most of which will have to be used within the system. For many there are several viable alternatives though only a few are mentioned below. The choice of the most appropriate must be made as part of the iterative process of planning as the scope, scale, location and schedule for system development firm up. This list is really driving a set of assumptions that all of the following can already be done technically and can already (or could if used in volume) be made cost effective.

• We can identify items - by type or down to an individual box using barcodes, three-dimensional barcodes, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, optical image recognition of printed labels
• We can track items - by having RFID tags in them go past sensors at known locations or have something in the item transmit its location wirelessly
• Devices can know where they are using Global Positioning Systems (GPS) or base station triangulation. Accuracy down to a meter or better is now achievable. They can therefore also derive their velocity and acceleration.
• Devices can determine which way up they are (orientation) using tilt sensors or motion sensors like that in the Nintendo Wii or Apple iPhone.
• A wide range of sensors are readily available and affordable. These can measure temperature, pressure, voltage (e.g. battery health), stress etc.

As well as low level building blocks, we also need to learn from - and probably reuse parts of - whole systems that share characteristics of our challenge:

• Long Distance/Bulk Shipping: Transporting goods in bulk using standardised container sizes is well established in, for example, shipping containers. These have dramatically improved the efficiency of transporting items in bulk over long distances – whether by road, rail, sea or air.
• The Internet: Has a lot in common with containerised shipping. “Packets” conforming to standards are carried around the world over networks that don't need to know what is inside the packets. Many of our homes are connected to the internet via broadband and with wireless hotspots now springing up everywhere we can design systems that require near ubiquitous connectivity.
• Systems made from joinable components: Lego® bricks, stackable pallets and racking systems, modular shelving systems etc.
• Automated Goods Handling: Amazon shipping centre for example. Moving and directing items of known size and shape to specific destinations. Typically using combinations of belts, rollers, winches, hydraulic rams etc. under computer control. Moving and directing objects or arbitrary size and shape (within acceptable bounds).
• Baggage handling systems such as those installed at major airports can route individual items of luggage to specific destinations without manual intervention – typically over conveyor belts and baggage carousels. Larger scale systems are also well known for handling entire containers of bags onto and off larger aeroplanes. These typically use platforms with scissor-jack and/or hydraulic rams to raise and lower them plus passive and/or motorised ball bearing beds to move the containers horizontally onto and within the plane.
• Automated Cleaning: The automated cleaning of, for example, milk bottles and other glass drinks bottles for reuse. Such cleaning systems meet existing food hygiene standards.
• Pick and Pack Automated and semi-automated pick, place and package systems are well known and widely used in the fulfilment centres of mail-order and online trading companies.