Automation at the Port of Qingdao

Railway crane and bridge crane are the same, are lifting the container crane, only the rail crane can lift the container after running along the track, find the right position, and then put the container down, so the container yard are one by one.

Qingdao Port automated terminal corresponding to the rail crane is also highly automated, which abandoned the traditional reliance on coal, oil and other power generation methods, continuous innovation and improvement, relying on hydrogen to obtain clean energy, that is, the use of ‘hydrogen power’.

Hydrogen power uses the chemical energy of hydrogen and oxygen converted into electricity to drive the rail crane without generating gaseous pollutants.

Using hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity has a number of benefits. Hydrogen is a clean energy source that does not produce carbon dioxide or dust particles, which is good for the environment. As far as raw materials are concerned, hydrogen can be obtained from many sources, unlike coal and oil, which are non-renewable energy sources.

Conventional rail cranes emit large amounts of carbon dioxide when they operate on coal and oil to generate electricity. When a rail crane completes a container lifting operation in a yard, it consumes an average of 6 kWh of electricity, which is equivalent to the emission of about 2.1 kg of carbon dioxide, as well as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and other gases, which generate a large number of dust particles and pollute the environment.

‘5G+ Automation Technology

Qingdao Port has also entered the 5G era.

In traditional harbours, many cables need to be pre-built during construction, including those responsible for transmitting control commands, receiving signals, and detecting the environment.

With 5G technology, information transmission can be done through wireless networks, avoiding the need to lay complex cables crisscrossing the harbour. Moreover, if the cables fail, the harbour will be ‘paralysed’, which will have a serious impact on the harbour's operation.

In the port, even 16 milliseconds of signal delay, may produce operational hazards, and 5G network coverage of the port, the signal transmission speed is very fast, bridge cranes, rail cranes and other large-scale equipment automation control will have no worries.

With ‘hydrogen power’ and ‘5G + automation technology’, the rail crane also got rid of the once about 3 tonnes of ‘big pigtails’ - high-voltage cable reel control device, the rail crane from now on ‘light load on the battlefield’.

Engineer of Qingdao Port Automated Terminal has said: Automated Terminal is our long-cherished wish for many years, because Automated Terminal represents the highest form of business in our industry, and it is also a direction of development.

Import and export of automated terminal

Busy in front of the yard

When a ship docks at the terminal, the terminal's automation system is activated as the operation instruction is given. First out of the gate is the automated bridge crane, which, while lifting containers, scans the information on the containers, such as the code, the size of the box, and the direction of the door, and transmits the information to the terminal's management centre.

Bridge crane scanning code: Each container has a unique code when it is produced, and this code accompanies it throughout its life, just like a person's ID number. The code is printed on the body of the container, which is first scanned by the crane.

The container is then placed by the bridge crane onto an automated guided transport vehicle, which travels to the specified location according to the orders given by the management centre.

The container is placed by the automated guided vehicle at the designated location in front of the yard and waits for the rail crane to lift him up.

Staff do not have to go to the site to operate the equipment, sitting in front of the screen can observe the operating status of the equipment.

The small dots on the screen, representing the automated guided transport vehicle. Automated guided transport vehicle transport, small dots will also move on the screen, the staff will clearly identify the location of the automated guided transport vehicle.

Unlike ordinary rail cranes, the rail cranes in Qingdao Port's automated terminal will automatically calculate the operation path, and put the containers into the designated position efficiently and accurately after lifting them up.

Trucks at the back of the yard

Containers are neatly arranged in the yard by the automated rail cranes, and behind the yard is the transport area for container trucks. The trucks are either empty trucks picking up imported containers or trucks pulling containers to the yard for export.

After ensuring that the truck drivers are in a safe place, the rail crane lifts the designated containers and places them on the container trucks.

After the rail crane completes the dispatch operation, the truck driver can pull the container out of the yard and drive away from the port to the destination of the cargo.

The high-speed automated rail crane moves at a speed of about 4.5 metres per second, which is 2-3 times faster than an ordinary rail crane.

The rail crane will automatically align the position to drop the container, and the container and the truck can then be automatically locked together.

When the container needs to be exported, the process is exactly the opposite of importing. The container truck is here, the container to be exported enters the port and as soon as it enters, the management centre gives the driver a location code for the port.

The driver follows the location code, which is displayed on his mobile phone, to find the cargo staging destination and pulls the container for delivery.

The truck driver delivers the container to the port's yard. By means of automated rail cranes, automated guided transport vehicles, and bridge cranes, the container is transferred from the yard to the ship that will sail abroad to complete the export.

For road transport, containers must be transported by special container trucks. Ordinary lorries can not transport containers, because he does not have and container matching device.

Reversing the ‘wrong time’ in the ‘fog period’

Container ships will soon arrive at the destination port, but the cargo ships can not enter the port directly, but in the vicinity of the port waiting for the pilot to come to the pilot, the waiting waters are called the anchorage. Compared with the container freighter, the pilot travelling on the pilot boat is much smaller. When the pilot arrives at the anchorage, he boards the tall container freighter and assists the captain to drive the container freighter into the harbour.

However, the sea is often foggy, fog pilotage is also an important problem faced by ports around the world.

Qingdao Port is located in the region with long fog period, and the average number of foggy days in a year is about 50 days, sometimes even more than 60 days.

Qingdao Port has equipped its pilot vessels with advanced equipments in order not to delay the pilotage tasks during the ‘foggy period’. Moreover, in foggy weather, it also strengthens the co-operation of multiple departments, such as pilotage stations, Qingdao Port business and information technology departments, to ensure the safe entry and exit of ships in foggy weather.

Pilot ships are equipped with advanced equipments such as ‘Small Target Identification Radar’ and ‘Infrared Video Enhancement System’, which are equivalent to the eyes and ears of the pilot ship in foggy days.

Pilot is known as ‘the first person on the water image of the country’. For foreign container ships, the pilot must come to the port to pilot, the pilot is also equivalent to a live navigation, to avoid the captain of the cargo ship is not familiar with the layout of the port.

As the ships travelling to and from Qingdao port become more and more dense, the number of ships queuing up to enter and leave the port is also increasing, the anchorage is getting farther and farther away from the port, which poses a challenge to the pilotage work. As the anchorage is getting farther and farther away, it takes 3-4 hours for the pilot boat to sail from the port to the anchorage. Later on, Qingdao Port adopted pilotage helicopters to carry out the task of transporting pilots, and the efficiency of pilotage was greatly improved.

A pilotage helicopter can carry 12 people. It only takes about 15 minutes for the helicopter to deliver the pilot to the anchorage.

Qingdao Port Qianwan Port Area, subject to the one-way navigation restrictions of the waterway, used to have to wait for the previous ship to leave the harbour pool before the next ship could come in, and each ship had to wait for an average of 2.5 hours. There is an urgent need for shipping companies to shorten the waiting time for ships in the harbour.

Under the condition of guaranteeing the safety, grabbing time from the debris, scientific, compact arrangement of the same berth ship docking and leaving the convergence process, which effectively improves the working efficiency of the port.

Two ships docked at the berth, a search ship to the port, a search ship to the port. Just after the last searching ship leaves, the next ship is immediately allowed to berth. In this way, 1-1.5 hours can be saved for the berthing ship.