A control apparatus includes a controller configured to acquire environment data obtained by observing an environment at a location, and control dispatch of a vehicle loaded with an article for a user who is located at the location, based on the acquired environment data.

Systems and methods are disclosed for managing task assignments for a fleet of haul trucks at a mine site. An assignment engine may: receive state data for a haul truck including haul weight data and second state data for the mine site that is indicative of a plurality of available tasks and associated task material weight data; assign a task to the haul truck by inputting the state data into a trained reinforcement-learning model, wherein: the model has been trained to learn an assignment policy that optimizes a reward function, such that the learned policy accounts for vehicle performance variance due to changing vehicle haul weight and/or road conditions; and cause the at least one haul truck to be operated according to the at least one task assignment.

A higher throughput is an increasingly necessary requirement for driverless transport systems with a plurality of driverless transport vehicles. In arrangements with inclined roadways, resuming a movement is problematic in that doing so has hitherto only been possible with a limited arrangement of the roadways and/or with highly dimensioned drives. The novel method provides for moving a driverless transport vehicle on an inclined transport roadway, wherein the steering drives are actuated on the basis of the detected inclination direction in order to move the vehicle such that the transport vehicle is moved transversely to the inclination direction. After a specified minimum speed of the transport vehicle transversely to the inclination direction is reached, the steering drives are adjusted such that the transport vehicle continues to move in the inclination direction.

The disclosure provides for a method for determining a pullover spot for a vehicle. The method includes using a computing device to detect information related to a system of the vehicle or an environment surrounding the vehicle using a sensor of a vehicle and determine a local failure of the vehicle based on the information. The computing device may then be used to determine that the vehicle should pullover before completing a current trip related to transporting a passenger or good by comparing vehicle requirements for the trip with the local failure and determine a pullover spot by identifying a first area for the vehicle to park in part based on a second area being available for a second vehicle to pick up the passenger or good. The computing device may operate the vehicle to the pullover spot and transmit a request for a second vehicle.

An apparatus and method for a mobile transport for delivering temperature-controlled contents includes a plurality of compartments coupled to a vehicle body where each compartment includes an interior space and a front panel defining a wall of the interior space. Each front panel is operable to open and reveal the interior space of its compartment in response to a predetermined condition. A temperature controller is configured to individually control a temperature setting within at least one of the plurality of compartments, and a germicidal controller is configured to provide a germicide to the interior space of each of the plurality of compartments. In operation, the mobile transport receives an order signal to pick up an item from a source, the order signal including the pickup location information, customer identification information, and delivery location information. After the item has been placed in the interior space of a compartment, the temperature controller sets the temperature setting for that compartment according to a type of the item. After arriving at the delivery location, the front panel of the compartment is opened in response to receiving an open request signal satisfying the predetermined condition, the open request signal including information relating to the customer identification information.

An operation management system includes an automatic traveling vehicle and a management server. The vehicle includes a first processor, and is configured to transport at least one of people or luggage. The management server includes a second processor, and is configured to communicate with the vehicle and manage the operation thereof. The first processor or second processor is configured to: determine whether there is a transport task in which the vehicle transports at least one of people or luggage; and, when there is no transport task, execute a task switching process of causing the vehicle to execute any one of a patrol task in which the vehicle performs a patrol of an operating area of the vehicle, a cleaning task in which the vehicle performs a cleaning of the operating area, and a patrol cleaning task in which the vehicle performs both the patrol and the cleaning.

A controller of an autonomous traveling vehicle as an information processing apparatus of the disclosure executes acquiring first information relating to a predetermined item and the first information relating to predetermined processing in a processing apparatus mounted on the autonomous traveling vehicle, acquiring second information relating to shipping of the predetermined item, controlling running of the autonomous traveling vehicle based on the second information, and controlling the operation of the processing apparatus based on the first information when the autonomous traveling vehicle is in a running state based on the second information.

A method and system for controlling unloading of a vehicle transporting a load of unprocessed material from a first location to a second location are described, wherein the second location includes a material processing device and a storage for unprocessed material. The method includes receiving a signal indicative of a level of unprocessed material contained in the material processing device; determining, based on the signal, whether an estimated level of unprocessed material contained in the material processing device is below or above a threshold at an estimated time of arrival of the vehicle at the material processing device; and, directing the vehicle towards the material processing device when the estimated level of unprocessed material contained in the material processing device is below the first threshold; or directing the vehicle towards the storage when the estimated level of unprocessed material contained in the material processing device is above the first threshold.

The invention provides a method for improving a delivery schedule for a fleet of modular electric vehicles, wherein each vehicle comprises a propulsion module having an electric propulsion system and a battery, and a set of trailer modules having a load capacity and a battery for providing electricity to said electric propulsion system, wherein each trailer module has an associated destination location and a destination time window. The proposed method is remarkable in that it is capable of taking into account multiple system constraints including random travel times using a genetic solving algorithm, and in that it is able to adapt the computation of delivery schedules to observed realizations of previously computed delivery schedules.

A method and a system for traversing a planned path in a marked facility are provided. A transport vehicle transits from a first location to a second location in the marked facility for traversing the planned path. The first and second locations are indicated by first and second location markers, respectively. The transport vehicle records a movement pattern of the transport vehicle, while transiting from the first location to the second location. The transport vehicle halts at an intermediate location when the transport vehicle fails to detect the second location marker at the second location. A first path traversed to reach the intermediate location from the first location is retraced by the transport vehicle based on the recorded movement pattern. On reaching the first location, the transport vehicle re-attempts to transit from the first location to the second location.