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A ship-to-ship automatic docking system for ocean cargo transfer

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Abstract

The world’s first ship-to-ship automatic docking system has been developed to provide a safe and reliable solution for docking between two ships exchanging containers in ocean. The system consists of vacuum pads, robot arms, cables, automatic winches and fenders. Basically, the docking status is maintained by contact force of fenders and cable tension controlled by automatic winches. All the developmental procedures from the conceptual design to the final prototype-system demonstration are presented focusing on the details of the two most important features: the passive- and emergency-mode controls. The passive-mode control makes the docking system freely follow the relative motion between the two ships without resistance. In case of emergency, the emergency-mode control is activated and the docking connection can be instantly released. A prototype was built to demonstrate the technical and operational feasibility in the actual ocean environment.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Technology Innovation Program (Project No: 10036234, Development of ship-to-ship automatic docking system) funded by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE, Korea).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Ocean Systems Engineering, KAIST, 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, Republic of Korea

    Yong Yook Kim, Hyun Chung, Soonhung Han & Phill-Seung Lee

  2. Department of Mechatronics, Korea Polytechnics, Changwon Campus 51-88 Woidongbanrim-ro, Changwon, Republic of Korea

    Kook-Jin Choi

Authors
  1. Yong Yook Kim
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  2. Kook-Jin Choi
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  3. Hyun Chung
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  4. Soonhung Han
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  5. Phill-Seung Lee
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Phill-Seung Lee.

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Kim, Y.Y., Choi, KJ., Chung, H. et al. A ship-to-ship automatic docking system for ocean cargo transfer. J Mar Sci Technol 19, 360–375 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00773-014-0256-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00773-014-0256-3

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