Off-the-shelf Ingredients

Engineers like to make use of as much as possible “off the shelf”. It might not be as exciting as designing something at the “leading edge” of science but it does tend to make for more reliable and affordable products. This section highlights a number of well-established product areas that will be used within localnet. The system as a whole is adventurous enough without re-inventing any wheels that we don't have to. As it will take several years for localnet to roll out and be widely adopted, even technologies that are, today, immature or expensive will become mainstream and cheaper in this timeframe.

Wireless Connectivity

Let's assume that all properties served by localnet can be connected to the internet - and hence each other. Even if they don't already have a wireless hotspot on or near the property, the cost of providing or at least subsidising the provision of one is a small price to pay for a service used several times a day. More remote properties may be connected via cellular telephone networks rather than wired broadband as the bandwidth required is not great.

Users at the property will be accessing a web application via the browser on their computer, smartphone or built into the localnet DeliveryPoint. The vehicles, staff and even the boxes themselves can also be wireless enabled for a few pounds so they can communicate with the LocalHub from where deliveries are dispatched.

Position and Orientation Awareness

A few pounds more will buy a global positioning system (GPS) circuit that lets devices determine their location. The accuracy is increasing and the power requirements and cost of these are decreasing. Let's assume that for a few pounds, we can embed a circuit that will locate itself to within a few metres.

Similarly, sensors that determine the orientation of a device are now widespread. Car dashboards include compasses. Smartphones and games controllers track your movements.

Identification and Tracking

Many goods now have Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags stuck to them or hidden inside them. These and their associated sensors let us identify individual items without having to touch or connect to them. Tracking the location of components is commonplace in manufacturing and increasingly done in retail outlets. Let's assume that for less than a pound an item we can embed, in any component, a tag that can be read from at least a few feet away.

Electric Vehicles

The tone of the discussion on each of the previous items has been very positive. They all do pretty much what we want them to and the costs and challenges are tending nicely towards “negligible” over the next few years. Electric vehicle development is not quite such a done deal. Although impressive strides are being made, there are still likely to be uncomfortable trade-offs between performance and range. Batteries degrade after a moderate number of charge/discharge cycles, are expensive and heavy.

Localnet has to be designed very much with these constraints in mind. The good news is that the whole concept of localnet allows electric vehicles to be used much more effectively than the current haphazard transport infrastructure it will replace.

Automated Goods Handling

Another technology that still has some way to go is in fully automated handling of arbitrary shaped goods. While robots have been lifting, accurately placing and assembling car components for decades, each one normally handles only one or a few types of parts. The more varied range of goods packed every day by Amazon and the online grocery specialists such as Ocado require more flexible systems and often a combination of automated machinery and highly optimised manual work practices. The internet has driven significant investment in such automated and semi-automated “pick and place” systems. Let's assume that these continue to become more automated and become more cost effective in smaller operations. Certainly, if localnet takes off, the economies of scale will help reduce the costs of such systems.