Spanish Initiative for Fully Automated Stowage on Roll-on/roll-off Operations

In the past decades, social development has motivated a notable growth on transportation necessities. In 2020, higher tendencies are expected, so transportation demand will grow about a 20%. Besides, one of the foundations of the UE's Green Policy initiative for freight is the transportation sea-to-ground through the so-called “Short sea shipping” or “Motorways of the sea”. Facing this scenario, it is needed the development of technologies and solutions which contribute to raise the profitability, flexibility and efficiency of marine transportation. This will lead to more competitive freight, so investing on such technologies is a guarantee of success. On this basis, within the framework of the Innterconecta 2013 programme, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI), the project AUTOPORT is being developed, which objectives are here detailed. The main objective of the project is to develop the technologies needed for a fully automated stowage on roll-on/roll-off ships in order to improve the logistic flow, reduce stowage times and maximize the efficiency of the space occupation in hold. This will be accomplished by both the automation of logistic processes and terminal trucks. Automation of processes aims for obtaining a stowage plan which reduces to the minimum the obstructions between cargo and trucks in the process and also the imbalance of the hold, in order to allow easy and smooth load operations even in rough sea conditions. Automation of terminal trucks consist in the efficient use of localization, path planning and control for taking a specifically designated roll trailer and stowing it on the exact hold location pointed by the stowage plan, all without human intervention.