Following years of incremental testing and successful sea trials, the smart container vessel Zhi Fei has reached a definitive milestone in maritime history. On Saturday, the vessel completed the world’s first full-process unmanned operation, successfully navigating, berthing, and handling cargo at an automated terminal in Qingdao Port without a single human hand on deck.
While earlier reports from Container News in 2021 and 2022 tracked the vessel’s construction and its initial entry into commercial service, those phases still relied on hybrid intervention for the most complex port maneuvers. This latest achievement, reported by CGTN, marks the transition from a ship that can simply steer itself to a ship that can manage an entire logistics cycle autonomously.
The 300 TEU vessel, which translates to intelligent navigation, docked at the terminal using a sophisticated array of sensors and a domestically developed navigation system. The most striking technical advancement of this mission was the departure from traditional manual line handling. Upon reaching the pier, a vacuum-based automatic mooring system utilized high-power suction pads to secure the hull in less than 30 seconds.
Once the ship was steady, the terminal’s automated loading and unloading equipment took over. The operation was synchronized by the A-TOS (terminal operating system) and A-ECS (equipment control system), which coordinated quay cranes and guided vehicles with millisecond-level response times.
“This successful operation proves that the integration between autonomous vessels and smart ports is no longer a theoretical concept but a functional reality,” said a spokesperson for the project’s technical team.
The Zhi Fei remains a versatile asset for the Shandong Port Shipping Group, maintaining its capability for manual, remote, and autonomous control. However, this full-process demonstration in Qingdao suggests that the industry’s long-standing goals of reducing maritime accidents and solving labor shortages through automation are rapidly becoming the new standard for global shipping.
