“Because there are no people, there are no lights on the dock even at night. The black dust that comes to mind when you think of ‘port’ cannot be found here.”
The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries and the Busan Port Authority ( BPA )굿모닝토토 도메인 held a demonstration event of fully automated port unloading equipment at the completion site of stages 2-5 of the West Container Pier (hereinafter referred to as ‘Container’) at Busan Port New Port from 11 am on the 27th.
The entire process of lifting containers from the berth and moving them to the storage area has been automated, including the introduction of automatic transfer equipment ( AGV ) and the establishment of an automated terminal operating system ( TOS ) by embedding unmanned vehicle location detection equipment. This is Korea’s first fully automated port.
The demonstration began with lifting an empty container around 11:30 a.m. that day. AGV
No. 329, which helps transport containers at the yard, began moving downward with a container crane. There was not a single person to be found in the yard. Previously, there was a control space called a ‘cabin’ on top of the crane, and people used a joystick inside the cabin to lift and lower containers like a ‘puller game’. However, the cabin installed in the ‘Con’ is used only in emergencies, and there is no manpower to control it. An empty container, assumed to have been loaded onto a ship, begins to be lifted via a ‘trolley’. The container crane installed on the west coast has two trolleys that hold containers. First, the first trolley picks up the container and lowers it into the loading space. Next, the second trolley picks up the unloaded container and loads it onto AGV 329, which has already arrived. Unit 329 waits for a while in the transfer area to avoid congestion among AGVs, and then moves toward the transfer crane to move to the equipment yard . The transfer crane lifts the container loaded by the AGV and moves it to the storage area. On one side, AGV No. 326 was moving to load containers onto the ship. This time, on the contrary, the transfer crane arrives in advance and unloads the container onto the waiting AGV Unit 326. Unit 326, loaded with containers, automatically moves toward the container crane on the quay wall. The work on Unit 326, which arrived under the container crane, is carried out in the reverse order of unloading. The second trolley lifts the container in Unit 326 and lowers it into the loading space, and then the first trolley lifts it and lowers it onto the ship. Ser’Con’ is built as a fully automated port and is operated without any people in the port area. The control room located a little away from the dock is staffed by 32 personnel for monitoring and emergency situations. A BPA official said, “If automation was not possible, there would have to be 90 people for 60 cranes, but with the introduction of AGV , there will be no need for people,” and “The control room will only need to have far fewer people than the existing number of people required.” However, when lifting or lowering containers from a ship, accidents can occur when the ship is shaken by the wind, so only this step is controlled by humans. Fully automated ports run on electricity, which reduces environmental pollution problems such as carbon emissions and significantly reduces the risk of fatal accidents. Kang Jun-seok , CEO of BPA , said, “Once SirConn completes its test run and is fully automated, it will be able to handle 30 containers per hour from the current 26.” Kim Chang-hoon, CEO of Dongwon Global Terminal Busan, the operator of SirCon, said, “After the test run, we expect to be able to operate normally around mid-March next year. Once fully automated, all stages of the dock, from berth to transfer and yard, will be seamless and seamless.” “It will proceed,” he said. Minister of Oceans and Fisheries Cho Seung-hwan said, “Starting with SeoCon, we will expand automated ports to Gwangyang Port and Incheon Port in the future, while also creating a Korean-style smart port at Jinhae New Port in Busan based on domestic technology.”