Multi-agent digital twinning for collaborative logistics: Framework and implementation

Liming Xu, Stephen Mak, Stefan Schoepf, Michael Ostroumov, Alexandra Brintrup

Abstract: Collaborative logistics has been widely recognised as an effective avenue to reduce carbon emissions by enhanced truck utilisation and reduced travel distance. However, stakeholders’ participation in collaborations is hindered by information-sharing barriers and absence of integrated systems. We, thus, in this paper addresses these barriers by investigating an integrated platform that facilitates collaboration through the integration of agents with digital twins. Specifically, we employ a multi-agent system approach to integrate stakeholders and physical assets in collaborative logistics, representing them as agents. We introduce a loosely-coupled system architecture that facilitates the connection between physical and digital systems, enabling the integration of agents with digital twins. Using this architecture, we implement a prototypical testbed. The resulting testbed, comprising a physical environment and a digital replica, is a digital twin that integrates distributed entities involved in collaborative logistics. Its effectiveness on integrating both physical and digital, stationary and mobile objects is demonstrated through a carrier collaboration scenario. This paper is among the few earliest efforts to examine the integration of agents and digital twin concepts in logistics sector and goes beyond the conceptual discussion of existing studies to the technical implementation of such integration.