routing

For the implementation of autonomous control of transport processes it is tried to transfer well known and approved routing protocols from data communication to transport problems. Here structural differences between data and transportation networks prevent a direct transfer of the protocols, so that several different, particularly adapted protocols with different targets must cooperate in transportation networks. In the following a concept for autonomous controlled transport networks, called “Distributed Logistics Routing Protocol”, is introduced, developed at the CRC 637 “Autonomous Control of Logistic Processes” in Bremen.

In current logistics systems, there is a trend towards more and more smaller and smaller transport positions (atomisation of load). This increases the complexity of planning and control. Therefore, there is a need for new concepts to be able to still have efficient logistics in the future. Such a new concept is the autonomous control where intelligence and decision autonomy are moved as far as possible from a central control instance towards the individual vehicles and goods. For this concept of autonomously controlled logistics components, a model is needed to represent the logistics processes and to enable the investigation and evaluation of solution approaches. Such a model has been developed in the CRC 637 “Autonomous Controlled Logistics Processes - A Paradigm Shift and its Limitations" [1] as a discrete-event simulation platform and is presented here with exemplary results of a control algorithm.