“Customer and vendor, home and abroad” – China’s JDL explains global private 5G vision

The smart logistics operation at China-based retail giant JD.com “makes Amazon look primitive”, reckons regional English-language title The Asia Times. Certainly, its warehousing and fulfilment business, JD Logistics (JDL), caught the attention of the industrial tech media this summer when it revealed a fleet of 100-odd 5G-connected automated guided vehicles (AGVs) had steered it through…

Beyond GPS

Positioning is a critical part of making vehicles autonomous and accurately locating construction points. The most common positioning systems today use GPS (global positioning system) or, in Europe, Galileo satellites. Although popular, these systems have limitations, primarily their radio signal strength variability and the difficulty of getting a usable signal inside structures or even outside…