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From the π perspective, on the way to meet Physical Internet - Reaction to "The Revolution Being Met"

by Richard Wang, the Founder & CEO of Humpback Whale (Shanghai) Information Technoloty CO, Ltd.

If one day human civilization covers Mars and builds huge city clusters there, and then has to design and plan a logistics system beyond the present earthly civilization, will it be under the guidance of the idea of Physical Internet (PI, Object π network for short)? If so, then undoubtedly we are thinking about something of profound significance and extraordinary value that deserves every effort to be explored and practiced. It is indeed an instantly exciting idea to open our minds to imagine the grandeur of what will happen in the world of the future, unencumbered and unconstrained by the constraints of the present world.

First of all, I approve of raising PI to a level of human thought and cognition to explore and analyze. I understand that PI should be a Tao, not an art, so I do not think PI is any ultimate technology, but PI can guide human beings to build the ultimate perfect logistics system. Good ideas can ignite the hope of all beings, and I think PI belongs to such a class of energy groups that can ignite revolutionary power. Since this is a revolution that is being met, which is to subvert and destroy the present world, the context cannot always be limited to how there are current problems and difficulties. Good ideas themselves will have endless vitality, and PI will certainly get various reflections from audiences and individuals in the process of its dissemination, and will continue to evolve and improve itself in the midst of everyone's flogging and oral criticism. The future PI and the present PI may be different versions, but will eventually create all that he should create.

Secondly, I hope to understand PI as the design of future logistics system with the insight of the Creator's idea of creating everything, and then use this idea. In the following, I try to interpret the mapping relationship between PI and logistics system through three perspectives and get some insights, so as to find the material of the vitality source of PI paradigmization, standardization and systemization.

The first is from the perspective of the human body, which is the system designed by the Creator. The Creator's masterpieces are endless, and the human body is one of them. The human body is composed of nine systems (i.e., motor, digestive, respiratory, urinary, reproductive, endocrine, immune, nervous and circulatory systems). Each system is perfect, while the systems build into a higher level of perfection among themselves.

Among them, we only compare the circulatory system and the nervous system with PI in some simple mapping relationships. At the system level, it can be understood that the circulatory system corresponds to Physical and the nervous system corresponds to Internet; at the micro level, the red blood cells and nerve cells are understood as the focus, and here again, the red blood cells can be understood as the standardized, unitized containers or carriers of PI, whose main goods loaded and transported are oxygen and carbon dioxide. The nerve cell is regarded as the AIOT logistics intelligent sensing terminal of PI. Blood vessels can be understood as the highway system, and other cells and tissues and organs of the human body can be simply understood as other nodes of PI.

Figure A   Human blood circulation system (red blood cells transport oxygen)

Let us first look at the order of magnitude of the standardized units of this system: a healthy person weighing 70 kg has a total of about 40 trillion to 60 trillion cells. About 90% of these are blood cells, and of the blood cells, most are red blood cells. It is estimated that there are about 3 trillion nerve cells.

Let us look again at the subtleties of the design of the standardized container for red blood cells: human red blood cells are pancake shaped with a convex edge and a concave center. The edges are thicker and the middle is thinner, a shape that maximizes the uptake of oxygen (O2) from the surrounding area. Each red blood cell contains between 200 million and 2 billion heme molecules, each composed of four substrates, each containing a heme matrix, and each heme matrix contains an iron atom, which can be bound to an oxygen molecule. Thus, one heme can bind to four oxygen molecules. In other words, each red blood cell standardized container can carry up to 8 billion oxygen molecules of such goods.

Figure B Circulatory system (red blood cells) and nervous system (nerve cells)

There are about 45 miles of nerves in the human body, which is the information superhighway for collaboration between the various systems of the human body. Every cell and human tissue and organ are linked to this well-connected neural network system, which is very similar in form to the Internet network and to the logistics information system of PI. The nerve signal is an electrical signal, generated by electrochemical reactions, its conduction speed is extremely fast, the signal is transmitted on the nerve as potential changes in the brain nerve cells between the fastest nerve impulse conduction speed of more than 400 km/h, nerve signals in the nerve or muscle fibers can be as high as more than 300 km/h transmission speed. It is conceivable that between the wind speed, information is transmitted between the red blood cells and other tissues and organs such as the heart and lungs, so that the goods (oxygen) are delivered accurately and efficiently to each cell and tissue organ.

Figure C    Nerve cell Sensor unit

Mapping at the micro level, red blood cells are the most exquisite and efficient standardized carriers or containers in the PI system, and nerve cells are the most delicate and superb AIOT intelligent terminals. Mapping at the macro level, the blood circulation system is the logistics and transportation system of PI, and the nervous system is the Internet system of PI. It turns out that the Creator designs things in this way, which is really very interesting and gives us an important design insight of PI system.

The second one is from the perspective of Internet, which I think is the closest system created by mankind after gaining insight into the design ideas of the Creator. the emergence of Internet is not accidental, in the process of its invention and evolution, it follows the design ideas of the Creator (space is limited, so I will not expand here), is extremely vital, and has been evolving towards perfection in the decades. We repeatedly put PI and Internet together for comparative illustration, necessarily seeing the beauty of Internet's design, while the key elements and nodes of Internet (router, switch, fiber, network, etc.) and the key elements and nodes of logistics system (warehouse, carrier, vehicle, road, etc.) have many mappable points. I agree with this in terms of basic conceptual understanding. But in this discussion, I would also like to draw out the following points.

(1) The physical and digital worlds must not be absolutized, let alone opposed. One must find their dependencies and correlate and unify them in essence. When some people talk about information, they often think that it is untouchable and invisible, that its transmission is instantaneous, that it has no mass, no inertia, and that it seems to be nothingness. In reality, this is not the case. The Internet is built on effective physical layer links, and the transmission of information can be physically quantified. In modern communication technology, whether it is twisted pair, fiber optic, or microwave, information is transmitted in the form of energy, which is usually consumed by the energy of the electromagnetic field, which is behind the energy that follows Einstein's E=MC² mass-energy equation. It can be simply understood that even a subtle section of information transmission requires the corresponding energy, which can be physically quantified and theoretically understood as similar to the quantized transmission of photons and virtual photons. To put it in a slightly more general way, the information is communicated through an energy field (electromagnetic field) by loading and passing (modulation and demodulation) on light waves (electromagnetic waves). And the transmission of light (electromagnetic waves) is subject to its transmission channel medium, the speed of propagation in the vacuum is 299,792,458 m/s, while the speed of light in the rest of the medium will be greatly reduced, such as the rate of light in optical fiber is about 200,000,000 m/s. This can be compared to understand the PI system, the goods through the aircraft, ship, railroad, road delivery speed is not the same. If you want to map the PI system to transport the goods and the Internet transmission of data packets, in fact, it makes sense, the Internet system on the information is transmitted in the form of energy, PI logistics system on the goods are transmitted in the form of material. If you understand this point, you will understand that the transmission of information on the Internet system and the mode of delivery of goods on the PI logistics system, in terms of matter and energy can be physically quantified correlated and unified.

Figure D   Loading and transmission of information on light waves (electromagnetic waves)

I believe that the concept that matter and energy can be physically related and unified is very important, and that the practical application of this concept in system design is seen in both the human perspective and the Internet perspective. Thinking in this way will give important insights that the core design idea of the Internet, the TCP/IP system model, can indeed be referred to and mapped for use in PI systems.

Figure E TCP/IP hierarchical model

(2) The mapping relationship between ISPs and ICPs, the key players in the Internet, in the PI system.

ISP is the Internet Access Service Provider, which is the abbreviation of Internet Server Provider, and ICP is the Internet Content Provider. in the construction and operation of the Internet system, the importance of ISP and ICP need not be said. In the mapping of the Internet to the PI system, ICP is there, the manufacturer of goods belong to this role, but ISP seems to be missing, so I think we should focus on the role of the ISP in the PI system.

In the Internet world, each telecom operator has assumed the role of ISP separately. In the PI system, this role must exist, but there will certainly be many debates on who is suitable to do it. For example, where is the high point of the PI system standard? Where is the Internet-like PI system route resolution node, where is the control point of PI system ecological construction and governance, who will build and who will operate the AIOT-based neural network system in PI system, where is the control point of PI system information flow, and how to ensure security? If there are many ISPs and ICPs in the PI system, how should the interconnection be realized and how to settle the capital flow? And so on, there are many more.

I raise this issue, and not to immediately solve this problem, but to throw a brick, this is an important subject, I would like to discuss and analyze.

Figure F   Internet ISP, ICP diagram

The third is to explore what insights can be gained from the first two perspectives from the evolving PI perspective, and to paradigmize, standardize, and Internetize the key elements and entities of the present-day logistics system.

It is possible to map, summarize, and conclude very much from this perspective. But my focus is to try to create a pattern of exploration, not to be exhaustive. Just as I said earlier, PI is a living system that evolves and updates versions. So I will still only present some points that I find interesting.

I think the human body can be said to be a great design example of Internet + IoT + logistics network, which is the masterpiece of the Creator. Most of the problems we encounter in PI system can be answered from this perspective. If only from the Internet perspective, it is difficult to understand and see how the transfer of information on the Internet system and the transfer of goods on the PI logistics system form a physical quantitative correlation and unification in terms of mass and energy. But if we start from the perspective of the human body, we will find that on the subject of oxygen transportation, the human circulatory system and the nervous system have perfectly integrated the transfer of goods (material) and the transfer of information (energy). There are two main types of cells behind this, namely about tens of trillions of red blood cells and 3 trillions of nerve cells each engaged in a dedicated job. In fact, the way the nine systems of the human body operate and the types of substances to be transported, the content of signaling and the form of energy are far more complex than the transport of oxygen, and if we expand and analyze them, we will find that the mysteries are endless. In short, if we explore and discover from the perspective of human body, we can get answers to most of the questions raised from the perspective of Internet and PI, and reveal the path of how to integrate and unify PI and Internet. I saw in the book "The Revolution Being Met", someone mentioned PI = IOT + standardized container + standardized storage + diversified transportation, and someone mentioned PI is a combination of Internet + Internet of Things + logistics network, about the exploration of these issues, in fact, we can find the answer from the Creator in the human body system design.

One of the revelations of the human body perspective for me is that the 3 trillion nerve cells in the human body are an extremely important existence, mapped to the PI, which is equivalent to various IOT smart terminal devices. If we continue to study, we will find that there are not only a large number of nerve cells but also a lot of communities, and in different systems and organs of the human body, there will be a hub to command these nerve cells, which is very much like the ISP in the Internet perspective, and also very much like the hub of the PI logistics system.

While the headquarters of all the nervous system is in the brain, which is like the root node and super ISP resolution center of the similar Internet, the concept lacks a clearer definition compared to the PI system. If we further study and analyze, it is amazing to find that all other cells, including of course red blood cells white blood cells, etc., produce electrochemical reactions with nerve cells to complete the interaction and transmission of information, which means that every cell is IOTized, and thus also Internetized. This is simply the world of Avatar, where human cells and the mechanisms of operation of each system are clearly interpreting the existence of universal communication mechanisms in everything. From these discussions and analyses, we can draw inspiration that IOT system is the most important part of PI system construction, and the unification and standardization of access to these IOT systems, as well as the realization of operating systems similar to Internet ISP and ICP, are the parts of PI system to focus on, and this is also the missing part of the present-day logistics system.

Figure G    From neurosensing unit to AIOT artificial intelligence

Finally, having explored looking at and mapping the PI system from the 3 perspectives above, let's look at what examples are happening that will accelerate the PI era. Again, I'm just listing them for exploration purposes only.

(1) At the macro policy level, the green double carbon will give rise to the PI era.

(2) At the level of communication technology development, the booming application of 5G and various IOT low-power wide area networks has paved the way for PI system construction.

(3) The construction idea of national industrial Internet identification system is similar to that of PI, which will definitely boost the development and evolution of PI.

(4) The arrival of autonomous driving and the era of vehicle-road cooperation will lay the foundation for the arrival of the PI era at the level of infrastructure construction.

(5) More importantly, at the level of innovative enterprises, especially some Internet platform-type companies that have penetrated deeply into the logistics industry, are already following the PI idea for the design and planning of their platforms, and are practicing commercialization in specific business operations. For example,

The mission of Dingdong Maicai is "to make good ingredients like tap water available to all." The standardization and paradigmization of the physical nodes of water, electricity and gas transportation and the pipeline system is very much in line with the PI's ideology. Dingdong buy food to also supply fresh food to thousands of households like tap water, its information system construction, logistics totes and other standardized containers, and the planning of the supply chain strip from origin to table will naturally conform to PI's ideology.

The system construction of Ali's Cainiao network is very much in line with and PI's thinking, especially the electronic face sheet system, the design concept and TCP/IP are similar, since its release in May 14, the whole express delivery industry has changed profoundly, the most easily perceived is the convenient express delivery and tracking service experience, the front-end delivery efficiency has increased by more than 30%. Currently, Cainiao's system is extending from the consumer supply chain to the industrial supply chain. According to Ali's second quarterly report data, as of June 2021, Cainiao's industrial supply chain has advanced into more than 30 manufacturing industry belts and agricultural products origins across the country.

Humpback Whale is an "IoT intelligent data service provider", the company's vision is to "make everything talk". After 7 years, the company has developed and operated "Whale Dart" + "Whale Cloud" AIOT digital base, which is also on the way to follow the PI idea. It is an AIOT neural network infrastructure system that escorts the flow of goods, providing "HaaS + PaaS + SaaS" integrated hardware and software, standardized products and services. The existing "Whale Dart" series of intelligent terminals can collect temperature and humidity, light, six-axis sensing (vibration, collision, tilt, etc.), location (position, speed, trajectory, electronic fence, etc.), gas (C02/ethylene/S02/NH3/C2H4/02, etc.), water quality (water dissolved oxygen/water dissolved salt/PH value/NH3/VOC, etc.) and other data. VOC, etc.) and other data. Based on IoT big data technology, the "Whale Cloud" platform realizes the whole process of cold chain monitoring and tracing, and connects to various enterprises and industry information platforms with standardized API interfaces to empower the closed loop of fresh digital production and marketing and help the government realize the whole process of cold chain supervision. It aims to provide real-time, full-chain, full-scene, multi-dimensional intelligent data monitoring and tracing services for smart logistics, cold chain storage, fresh food, vaccines and drugs, medical equipment, precision instruments and other fields.

In fact, there are countless practical examples on the way to meet Physical Internet. I believe that the natural embrace and commercial operation of PI system at the level of various enterprises is the source of the vitality of PI system, and as long as there are more and more such examples, the effect of amplification from point to line and from line to surface will be gradually realized. When it comes to the stage of quantitative change to qualitative change, under the guidance of national policies and the promotion of international industry organizations or alliances, the PI era will really come. What we need to do now is to become the caretakers, disseminators, preachers and practitioners of PI, to add bricks to the PI system, and to become the witnesses of the arrival of the PI era.