Autonomous straddle carriers, cranes, and internal terminal vehicles
Ports are among the most automated industrial environments in the world – yet they remain largely invisible in discussions about robotics and autonomy.
While factories and warehouses dominate headlines, container terminals quietly operate as vast cyber-physical systems, coordinating fleets of machines that move the physical foundations of global trade.
A modern container port is not a single robot or even a fleet of robots. It is an integrated system of cranes, vehicles, sensors, software platforms, and human supervision, operating continuously under intense economic and political pressure. When ports fail, supply chains fracture. When they perform well, global commerce flows with little notice. [Read more…] about Automated port and terminal operations: Robots moving global trade