Camco Technologies, a Belgian terminal automation company, has announced new contracts by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company Limited (ZPMC) for Beibu Gulf Port Qinzhou greenfield fully automated terminal.
[s2If is_user_logged_in()]In particular, two contracts were awarded in December to Camco’s new China office by ZPMC, the world’s largest crane builder and general contractor for the Beibu Gulf Port Qinzhou greenfield fully automated terminal, located in the China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone.
The first contract was for ship to shore (STS) crane optical character recognition (OCR) and the second one for the gate automation of Qinzhou terminal, China’s first fully automated terminal for sea-rail transportation.
Camco Technologies has been awarded the integration of its BoxCatcher crane OCR technology for five STS cranes, built by ZPMC. The cranes will be installed at the automatic container berths in Beibu Gulf Port Qinzhou terminal and Camco’s sliding BoxCatcher technology will be used for container registration and identification during vessel loading and discharging.
The disruptive OCR hardware will be installed on the cranes manufactured at the ZPMC Shanghai production facility, according to Camco which said that “After shipment, the cranes will serve the first automated container berths at the Qinzhou Greenfield terminal located in the China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone.”
The construction of two automated container berths in Qinzhou terminal has been a major project in the establishment of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor in the western region and the Beibu Gulf International Gateway Port.
After the operation of the two berths, Qinzhou terminal will be the fifth fully automated container terminal in China and the first automated terminal applying sea-rail transportation in the country.
The sliding BoxCatcher OCR system will register every container during the vessel loading or unloading at berths N° 7 and N° 8 in the Qinzhou terminal.
Camco explains that “In order to allow the BoxCatcher camera to follow the flight path of the spreader, the camera slides along vertical rails, mounted on the crane portal legs. With a traveling speed of up to 6m/second and data processing time of eight seconds/move, the BoxCatcher supports up to 36 moves/hour/crane.”
Whether it concerns a single, twin, tandem or quad lift, the BoxCatcher system will capture every box, feeding the Terminal Operating System (TOS) with accurate data, according to the announcement.
While the reading of the programmable logic controller guarantees that images are made at the exact height, the integrated laser scanner adjusts positioning and triggering for any skew and sway during crane operations. Given the two cameras for the short sides and two cameras for the long sides, the BoxCatcher is able to capture 360° images of the container. “All image processing is done on-board the camera system,” noted Camco.
The Camco OCR engine runs on Camco proprietary image analysis software and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) algorithms. The engines keep the images for storage enabling Qinzhou terminal to perform efficient claims management.
The second contract includes the automation of the terminal gate and yard access processes with the Camco gate automation solution being able to handle up to 600 trucks per hour, feeding the terminal TOS with accurate data for process optimisation.
Camco provides 2X2 OCR truck portals In and Out as well as all kiosks for the terminal in- and out- gates and lanes as well for the yard access. Additionally, the Camco gate automation solution integrates the Gate Operating System software for managing kiosks, OCR portals and access control systems as well as the operator exception handling application.[/s2If]
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