inbound

Scan the headlines for logistics developments, and you’ll quickly be convinced that the drones are coming … and soon. Evidence of the rising interest in automated vehicles is all around us, from Uber buying a self-driving truck provider to Clearpath launching warehouse robots to Rolls-Royce designing remote-controlled cargo ships.

Amid the clamor, one player on the world robotics stage is often overlooked: the Netherlands. It may be only the sixth-largest economy in the European Union, but the Netherlands has quietly become a hotbed of logistics robotics innovation and development.

The new tech covers several transport modes: road, rail, and sea. For instance, in April, semiautomated trucks cruised across Europe to a finish line in the Netherlands. As part of a “drone truck” experiment, six convoys of paired “smart” trucks completed a driverless tour of the Continent, leaving from points in Sweden and Germany and finishing their journey at Rotterdam harbor.

In June, the Dutch rail infrastructure firm ProRail announced plans to test driverless freight trains on the 90-mile route between Rotterdam and Emmerich. ProRail will work with German firm DB Cargo to design the system, get government approval, and conduct trial runs, likely sometime in 2018.

And in September, the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS) launched a five-year project to create self-driving cargo boats to ply the city’s ancient canals. AMS researchers will collaborate with engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Delft University of Technology, and Wageningen University and Research (WUR) in the $27 million “Roboat” project, which could have prototype drone boats afloat before the end of 2017.

Dutch designers test driverless vehicles for road,
rail, and sea

Few logistics trends have generated as much hype as the Internet of Things (IoT), that web of connected sensors that allows devices from trucks and forklifts to inventory and pallets to “talk” to each other and share data across the supply chain.

Now, engineers at Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. are looking to extend the IoT to the high seas. The South Korea-based shipbuilder recently signed a deal to create an “ecosystem for smart ships” with partners SK Shipping, Intel, Microsoft, the Ulsan Center for Creative Economy & Innovation, and the Daejeon Center for Creative Economy & Innovation.

With a goal of enabling safe ship operation and improving crew well-being, the collaborators hope to develop “ship service software” and implement it as early as 2019 to allow for ballast tank inspection, remote medical treatment and services for crews, virtual reality training, automatic voyage information reporting, and maintenance for key equipment.

The deal follows Hyundai’s announcement in May that it would team up with consultant Accenture to create a smart ship system called OceanLink, serving the shipbuilding, shipping, and onshore-logistics sectors with a network of sensors and analytics software that can monitor a ship’s real-time status and condition, including data on weather, location, onboard equipment, and cargo.

Internet of Things
goes to sea

Ask a dozen logistics professionals about potential uses for airborne drones in our industry and you’ll get a dozen answers: port security, parcel delivery, yard monitoring, the Internet of Things. You name it, and somebody is working on a plan to use these airborne platforms to save time and money in the supply chain.

Now, an anonymous Belgian drone enthusiast who goes by the handle “Theradrone” is taking a different approach, using his four-rotor copter to film sweeping video portraits of the containerships that frequent the Port of Antwerp.

The 10-minute-long films typically begin with a view of the sand and surf at the operator’s feet. Then the copter takes off over the waves, winging its way a mile or two out to sea to intersect with a distant freighter. When it arrives, the three-pound electronic insect hovers above the immense vessel, recording its unique view of the massive bow wave, thundering wake, and the sheer bulk of the ship as it steams toward its next port of call.

Maritime aficionados can check the stats on each ship’s velocity, its distance from shore, and the nearby wind speed, as well as the height and bearings of the drone above. To view the movies, check out the series of films on Facebook or subscribe to Theradrone’s channel on You Tube.