Delivery Boxes: Common Features

There are several features that are common to all of the delivery boxes with the exception of the lighter, internal boxes.

Building Blocks

The boxes are designed to stack together efficiently. There are only two sizes that make up the vast majority of all boxes. The smaller one is the size of a large cereal box and six of these stacked together are the same size as the larger  OmniBox size.

The top and bottom of the box contain a latching mechanism that lets you push any two of these boxes together so that they clip together and can then be held or carried as a single box. The latch can be released by pressing the release button – unless it has been deliberately locked by the system. These latches are reinforced with steel inside the plastic so as to form a solid joint at both top and bottom edges.

Uniquely Identifiable

Every box in the system has a unique identity which is encoded in a radio frequency ID (RFID) tag buried within the plastic skin. The exact location of the tag varies, making it harder for anyone to find should they be attempting to remove it. Sensors on the DeliveryPoints, vehicles and carried by the delivery staff can detect the presence of containers automatically and without having to make physical contact with them. The system therefore knows the location of all containers at all times. This helps not only with routing containers to the correct location but also in identifying where any missing containers were last seen.

Boxes are also visibly labelled so that a human can read their identity and other details, such as who the box has been assigned to. Many are assigned to specific users as this helps ensure they are looked after, kept clean and returned when appropriate.

Electronic “Smarts”

A wide range of circuits could be included in a box - according to the particular purpose of the box. Many of these will be sensors of one form or another. These could detect temperature or humidity where the contents are perishable. They could measure stresses on the box - determining how it has been handled or to infer how full it is. Motion and orientation detectors could track the position of the box etc.

Automatic Charging

Boxes may have electrical contacts recessed into their bottom face to make contact with power rails in the vans and distribution points. These are used both to supply power and to communicate with any electronics that may be in a box. This allows the batteries to be recharged and for the devices in the box to be updated automatically.

Alternatively, wireless power transfer and wireless communication would allow fully sealed units with no need for external contacts. These will be more reliable and more flexible than the above contact scheme but would be more expensive, at least in the short-term, as these technologies are still maturing.

Anti-theft Protection

Even when they don't contain anything, boxes are useful and valuable. If people are tempted to make off with supermarket trolleys, they will certainly try to steal delivery boxes. To deter such theft, a proportion of boxes (the proportion dependent on how prevalent theft is expected to be) are fitted with a tiny GPS location device, rechargeable battery and cellular transmitter. 

When in a localnet vehicle or DeliveryPoint, the device is connected, its battery is charging and the security circuit is “reassured” that it is still in friendly hands. If it fails to be reassured again within a specified time, it will wake up and try to transmit its position via the cellular network.  If it cannot obtain a GPS “fix” it will try to use cellular signal triangulation or other phone services to estimate its position. If it successfully communicates its position to the central system, it can be told to sleep again for a specified period. Otherwise, it will sleep for a random period between a few hours and a few days before trying again.

If the box is forcibly removed from a DeliveryPoint or the locking mechanism has otherwise been tampered with, the circuit will start to sense and report its position immediately and at specified intervals thereafter.
To make it difficult to detect and disable these transmitters, they are hidden beneath the metal U-shaped rods that form the locking mechanism and are buried within solid plastic in one of several possible locations. It would therefore take considerable effort to be sure of disabling one – and frustrating to find after all that effort that in ninety-something percent of cases there wasn’t actually one there at all.