COGnitive Logistics Operations through secure, dynamic and ad-hoc collaborative networks

Project Information

COG-LO

Grant agreement ID: 769141

DOI

10.3030/769141

Project closed

EC signature date 18 May 2018

Start date 1 June 2018

End date 30 September 2021

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Smart, Green And Integrated Transport

Total cost

€ 4 999 922,50

EU contribution

€ 4 999 922,50

Coordinated by

CONSORZIO NAZIONALE INTERUNIVERSITARIO PER LE TELECOMUNICAZIONI
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - COG-LO (COGnitive Logistics Operations through secure, dynamic and ad-hoc collaborative networks)

Reporting period: 2019-12-01 to 2021-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

COG-LO will create the framework and tools for dynamic and ad-hoc logistics collaborations. This will be achieved by: 1) Adding cognitive behavior to all involved logistics actors (i.e. systems, vehicle, cargo); 2) Developing a collaborative environment for the exchange of information through secure and trusted networks; 3) Improving decision making addressing ad-hoc requests and exceptions.

COG-LO consortium consists of lead companies in different domains: ICT, Security/Trust, Optimization, AI and Logistics. The project outcomes will be validated in three scenarios covering multi-modality, inter-country deliveries and urban logistics operations.

By exploiting COG-LO it will be possible to achieve several benefits in logistics, e.g. increase the load factor, reduce the cross-border parcel delivery costs, reduce the ratio between distance covered by logistic vehicles and number of pickups, and implement adaptive response management to customer requirements.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In the first 18 months of the project, several significant results have been achieved.
In fact, as a result of continuous interactions with major stakeholders of the postal and logistic sectors, new business cases have been identified and the corresponding function requirements have been defined.
Starting from such requirements the Cognitive Logistic Object framework has been developed and a draft of the system architecture implementing such a framework has been designed.
Furthermore, major components of the COG-LO solution have been designed and implemented and a prototype integrating all such components has been realized and demonstrated at month 16 to several postal operators in the context of a Market Forum organized by COG-LO in Croatia.

To this purpose we observe that large effort has been devoted by the project to communication and dissemination of COG-LO approach and solution.
More specifically, several events have been organized. The major of them have been held in Ljubljana and Split in January 2019 and September 2019, respectively.
In such two workshops, named "Market Forums", there has been the participation of key personnel from 26 European postal operators that have shown interest in COG-LO activities and have provided comments and feedback.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

COG-LO focuses on the application of the most advanced ICT solutions in the logistic domain and goes beyond the state of the art in several areas:
- Intelligence/cognitive aspects for logistics: COG-LO will develop robust optimization frameworks that will be able to use historical data about missed deliveries, daily delivery fluctuations and more in a systematic way for providing logistic plans that anticipate operational noise due to external factors such as road traffic conditions, unexpected delivery problems etc. In this way COG-LO will couple analytics and optimization, considering the effect of optimization control to the performance of operations in an environment with continuous external variations.

- Interoperability of logistics solutions: COG-LO will include extensive use of semantics and sophisticated workflow management, whereby all different logistics aspects (control and data flow, resources, goods and carriers) will meet in a unified framework able to realise and understand their interrelations, strengthening the convergence of physical and virtual worlds. Further, COG-LO will enhance security and privacy through a holistic access and usage control framework considering also domain-specific needs, as well as the corresponding legal requirements (such as the emerging GDPR).

- Security and privacy: The COG-LO approach will be grounded mainly on semantic, highly comprehensive access and usage control, and advanced cryptography. COG-LO will use an access scheme built over the COG-LO ontologies, in fact implemented itself as ontology. Moreover, as regards enforcement of access and usage control policies, and in order to cope with heterogeneity and scalability, COG-LO will use cryptographic means, specifically Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE). On top of the above, COG-LO will properly exploit emerging distributed ledger technologies, contributing to their so far relatively unexploited application in the context of IoT, with a view to creating a scalable chain of trust towards visibility and optimisation. Finally, it should not be neglected that the COG-LO approach will be heavily rooted on the associated legislation and the fundamental requirements thereof.

Therefore, COG-LO will have the following impact:
- Better, more flexible integration of ICT solutions and operational processes, linking the digital and physical flows in the logistic domains
- Seamless freight transport execution across Member States and modes of transport. This will represent a further step towards the vision of a unique European market.
- Increased reliability and reduced transit times for logistic operations
- 10% higher load factors and 10% shorter delivery routes resulting in respective reductions in fuel consumption and in lower emissions
- Viable business models for collaborative and dynamic transport services

Cognitive Logistic Object framework.