Community Logistics Package with Imaging Sensors for Integrity Monitoring
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current logistics systems face challenges in providing efficient, cost-effective, and timely international delivery services, as they are often centralized, leading to high costs and long delivery times, which limits international trade and private deliveries.
Innovation Solution
A collaborative logistics system that utilizes a community of individuals to dispatch objects, equipped with packages containing recognition codes and a computing platform for image capture and tracking, ensuring object integrity and real-time location monitoring through image comparison and geolocation, allowing for secure, reliable, and low-cost delivery.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If centralized control logistics systems are used, then delivery reliability is improved, but delivery cost increases and delivery time extends
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the centralized logistics system into distributed peer-to-peer nodes. Instead of a single centralized control point, multiple individuals act as independent nodes in the delivery network, each capable of receiving, storing, and forwarding packages. This segmentation enables parallel delivery paths, reducing congestion and delivery time while maintaining reliability through distributed verification mechanisms.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a new dimensional approach by utilizing the spatial distribution of individual nodes across geographic areas. Rather than traditional hub-and-spoke routing, the system creates a multi-dimensional mesh network where packages can be routed through multiple individuals in different locations, enabling shorter paths and faster delivery while maintaining control through digital tracking.
2Reliability
If centralized control logistics systems are used, then delivery reliability is improved, but delivery cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements self-service mechanisms where individuals in the network voluntarily participate in package delivery as a service to the community. Participants use their own existing resources (transportation, storage space) to deliver packages, eliminating the need for dedicated delivery infrastructure and reducing operational costs while maintaining reliability through community-based verification.
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables individuals to perform multiple functions: they can receive packages, store them temporarily, forward them to destinations, and verify deliveries all through a single integrated platform. This multi-functionality reduces the need for specialized infrastructure and personnel, lowering delivery costs while maintaining service reliability through unified digital tracking and verification.
3Loss of time
If collaborative individual-based dispatching is used, then delivery cost decreases and delivery time is reduced, but object integrity control becomes more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces physical integrity verification mechanisms (such as sealed containers requiring physical inspection) with digital imaging and blockchain-based verification. Image sensors capture package conditions at various stages, and cryptographic verification ensures data integrity, eliminating the need for complex physical inspection processes while maintaining reliable integrity control in the distributed system.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces digital intermediaries in the form of image sensors, computing platforms, and blockchain verification protocols that mediate between the physical package and the distributed individuals. These digital intermediaries automatically verify and record package integrity at each handover point, simplifying the control process while maintaining reliability across the decentralized network.
4Reliability
If real-time image capture and comparison is implemented, then object integrity monitoring is improved, but energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements periodic image capture at key milestones (package handover points, storage locations, and delivery destinations) rather than continuous monitoring. This periodic action significantly reduces energy consumption of image sensors and data transmission while maintaining reliable integrity monitoring by capturing critical states at strategically chosen intervals throughout the delivery journey.
Data Source
AI summary
The invention concerns a system for dispatching objects via individuals of a community using packages intended to contain the objects and given at least one recognition code, a computing platform including at least one computing application intended to be downloaded by the computing units held by the individuals of the community, and each package is provided with at least one image sensor for said object(s), and the system includes a module to determine and detect a predetermined key step in the dispatching of the package, and the computing platform and/or the computing units are parameterized to transmit an image capture request to the image sensor(s) at each predetermined key step of dispatch; and receive images, via the computing application, relating to said object(s) taken by the image sensor(s).