The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Transportation & Logistics (MIT CTL) and Spanish intralogistics group Mecalux have started a five-year collaborative project to integrate self-learning artificial intelligence (AI) into logistics.

Through MIT’s Intelligent Logistics Systems Lab, the two institutions will explore applications of AI models with potential for businesses and society.

“The objective of our collaboration with Mecalux is to foster disruptive innovation and achieve two highly impactful use cases where AI transforms industry decision-making,” said Matthias Winkenbach, director of research at MIT CTL. “We will train complex self-learning machine learning models to ultimately reduce costs, lower carbon footprints and improve service quality for customers.”

In the first year of this project, the teams at the Intelligent Logistics Systems Lab (intelligent.mit.edu) and Mecalux will develop two research areas to accelerate innovation. The first will focus on increasing the productivity of autonomous warehouse robots. Using simulation, optimisation and machine learning techniques, researchers will develop a swarm intelligence system enabling multiple robots to operate as a single entity, making collective decisions.

“We aim to create a new generation of autonomous robots that learn from human behaviour to foster greater collaboration and efficiency in warehouses,” said Winkenbach.

The second research area will centre on training self-learning AI models. The lab will design systems capable of learning from demand patterns and anticipating new customer purchasing habits.

“Current distribution systems fail to account for the full complexity of logistics networks and often make strong simplifying assumptions,” said Winkenbach. “This project seeks to help companies operating large networks of warehouses, distribution centres and stores automatically determine the most efficient way to fulfil each order, taking into account the real-time status of the distribution network.”

This research partnership between MIT CTL (ctl.mit.edu) and Mecalux should help logistics experts, warehouse staff and carriers perform their jobs with precision.

“Having contributed to founding MIT’s Intelligent Logistics Systems Lab, Mecalux has leveraged its practical expertise in warehousing and its software and automation experts to support MIT’s research,” said Javier Carrillo, CEO of Mecalux (www.mecalux.com). “The goal is to transform companies’ logistics operations to achieve greater efficiency.”