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A world first in radio design has
been created by product design
and development firm Cambridge
Consultants, working in conjunction
with Ocado. The technology
enables Ocado to control and
co-ordinate the movements of
hundreds of thousands of crates
containing millions of grocery
items, in real time and in parallel.
It means that Ocado’s innovative
next-generation warehouse is
home to the most densely packed
mobile network in the world.
Ocado is the world’s largest online-
only grocery retailer – shipping more
than two million items every day
to customers around the UK. The
technology breakthrough is enabling
Ocado to control 1,000 machines,
communicating with them 10 times
a second, all within an area the size
of an Olympic swimming pool, thus
maximising warehouse efficiency. The
innovative wireless solution is also
scalable, so could potentially handle 20
times the number of movements.
It’s a challenge on the scale of
attempting to control the movements
of all the aircraft that fly in and out of
London’s Heathrow Airport in a day
– but all at the same time and while
they’re circling around within a few
kilometres of each other.
Ocado: “World first”
in radio design
“It was clear early on that no
technology existed which would
do what Ocado needed,” said Tim
Ensor, head of connected devices at
Cambridge Consultants – which has
one of the world’s largest independent
wireless development teams. “That
meant they needed to create a
completely custom solution to achieve
the required performance – but do so
in a way that had a manageable risk
profile and in the minimum amount of
time. They engaged us to help them
achieve this.”
Existing mobile communications
technologies did not offer the real-
time control or scalability that Ocado
needed. The Cambridge Consultants
team identified that a system based on
4G telecoms technology deployed in
the unlicensed 5GHz Wi-Fi band gave
the best chance of achieving Ocado’s
goal of co-ordinating thousands of fast-
moving machines to within a fraction
of a second.
“Our expertise in 4G system
development and familiarity with
available platform technology
allowed the joint Ocado and
Cambridge Consultants team to
develop a solution very quickly
and with minimum risk,” said Ensor.
“We created a system based on
the principles of 4G but which can
support 1,000 devices from a single
base station – over 10 times more
than is usually possible. At the
same time, we needed to ensure it
met the requirements of operating
in licence-free spectrum. It is the first
time this has all been done with 4G
technology.”
The new wireless control system
provides Ocado with a guaranteed
connection 10 times a second to each
of 1,000 machines per access point –
all working within a 50-metre radius.
As it works in licence-free spectrum,
it can be deployed quickly anywhere
in the world. As well as logistics, the
system could potentially be used to
control fleets of semi-autonomous
vehicles at sites such as factories,
construction sites and airfields. Ocado
is the intellectual property owner and
has filed a number of patents for this
new technology.
‘This revolutionary wireless
development work from the Ocado and
Cambridge Consultants collaboration
is a crucial part of the advanced,
proprietary automation which will
power our next-generation warehouses
and those of our partners,” said
Mark Richardson, operations director
at Ocado. “We set out to create a
groundbreaking platform for online
retailers – the Ocado Smart Platform
– to push the boundaries of efficiency,
modularity and scalability. Working
closely with the Cambridge Consultants
team has enabled us to make our
ambitious vision a reality.”
Billed as a ‘world first’, a new wireless control system is
transforming the warehouse automation solution used by
innovative UK online grocery retailer, Ocado.
40
Logistics Business Magazine | February 2016
AUTOMATION NEWS