Migros, a Swiss supermarket chain, and Barilla, Italy’s leading pasta-maker, both manage their daily deliveries from central warehouses to local retailers using AntRoute. This is a piece of software developed by AntOptima, a spin-off from the Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Lugano (IDSIA), one of Europe’s leading centres for swarm intelligence. Every morning the software’s “ants” calculate the best routes and delivery sequences, depending on the quantity of cargo, its destinations, delivery windows and available lorries. According to Luca Gambardella, the director of both IDSIA and AntOptima, it takes 15 minutes to produce a delivery plan for 1,200 trucks, even though the plan changes almost every day.
Quelle: Artificial intelligence: Riders on a swarm | The Economist
