Interplai – Interplai is a technology company that uses AI to design logistics software and robots to improve efficiency in last-mile delivery

Interplai is creating the world’s most efficient last-mile delivery solution using smart collaborative robots and software.

The last mile of delivery is over 53% of the total transport cost for goods. Our goal is to significantly reduce this cost by using a multi-faceted approach to increase delivery efficiency.

Reduce Last-Mile Delivery Costs

We provide innovative logistic technologies and services to significantly reduce the costs for last-mile delivery.

Increase Operation Efficiency

Our solution maximizes resource utilization while minimizing waste to achieve significant efficiency improvements.

Apply Systems Approach

We use systems engineering to apply our patent-pending software, robotics and process improvements to solve the hard logistics problems in last-mile delivery.

Our Technical Approach

Artificial Intelligence

Multi-Robot System

Logistics Software

For our solution, we’ve taken a systems approach that uses AI to both design a multi-robot system (MRS), that operates delivery robots on sidewalks and pedestrian areas, and to create logistics software that solves the hard problem of optimizing the system’s operation.

Multi-Robot System

Multi-Robot Systems (MRS) is a popular and rapidly evolving area of research in robotics. A MRS can be characterized as a set of robots operating in the same environment. Each robot in the system will have tasks that it’s trying to complete and in many instances they may share these tasks with other robots in the system. Their awareness of other robots and their corresponding goals can lead the system to execute some very unique and complex behaviors.

Modular Delivery Robot

We’ve created a delivery robot that uses our patent-pending modular and reconfigurable technology. This allows us to have customized cargo containers (Smart Boxes) for different delivery services like food, medication, and parcels. These containers are smart and have integrated microcomputers and sensors.

Modularity is an important concept in our solution that we’ve fully leveraged in our design. It’s a key enabler to our efficiency improvements that allows us to significantly increase the utilization of our robot chassis across multiple delivery use cases.

Reconfigurable Technology

Our Smart Boxes, which can be customized for different delivery use cases, allow our delivery robots to be easily reconfigured based on business needs. Smart Boxes can be easily swapped and multiple boxes can be docked on the robot to increase cargo capacity.

Storage System

We’ve created a patent-pending smart storage system to further increase efficiency that allows our robots to dock and have cargo containers loaded and unloaded. This fully automated system allows the robots to reconfigure themselves without the need for human interaction. This system allows us to achieve asynchronous delivery that helps us to further boost our efficiency.

Collaborative MRS for Last-Mile Delivery

Our delivery robots are designed to be collaborative. We’ve worked in the industry a long time and have been disappointed by the lack of interoperability in the autonomous vehicle space. We wanted to fix that at Interplai, and from the very beginning, we designed our robots to work with autonomous vehicles. When our storage system is integrated into an AV, we can significantly improve the overall delivery efficiency.

Logistics Software

Our innovative MRS has many degrees of freedom that make it challenging in determining an optimal solution when solving the last-mile delivery problem. To address this challenge, we’ve created a proprietary vehicle route optimization software that maximizes efficiency in controlling the behavior and movement of our MRS. Our simulations predict we’re over 25% percent more efficient than our AV delivery competitors.

Our Team

Mark has over 20 years of experience in automotive product development and autonomous vehicle research gained at Ford Motor Company and Great Wall Motor (GWM). He was the Chief Engineer of Autonomous Driving Systems at GWM, and established its U.S. R&D Center in Detroit, MI. At Ford, he was a technical specialist in autonomous vehicle platforms and was a founding member of Ford’s AV research group. Mark has BS & MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Missouri University of Science and Technology and is completing a Ph.D. in Industrial & Systems Engineering (in-progress) from Wayne State University.

Eddy has over 15 years of experience in venture capital, investment banking and corporate development. He led the US based VC/PE technology related investments at Fosun Capital (investment arm of Fosun International US$100Bn+ AUM). He has extensive experience in technology investment banking and was part of the core corporate development team at Synopsys handling public/private acquisitions. Eddy has a BA degree in Economics from UCLA and an MBA from UC Berkeley.

Saran holds a PhD from Texas A&M University, specializing in stochastic programming, large scale optimization, and discrete event modeling and simulation. Previously, Saran worked in industry for nine years for companies like JDA Software, Hewlett Packard where he had opportunities to develop and implement decision support systems (mathematical and statistical models) in the domains of consumer support, supply chain management, transportation, and pricing and revenue management. Saran is involved at Interplai in developing advanced predictive and prescriptive models for last mile delivery using cutting edge technologies.