Autonomous boats and vehicles for logistics and tourism
Two innovative projects from Supply Chain Innovation
The Supply Chain Innovation research group is one of the youngest research groups at HZ. In 2020, a group of researchers was brought together around lector Thierry Verduijn, who vigorously initiated several projects in the Zeeland logistics sector. After his departure and that of a large portion of the original researchers, new, young researchers have joined to continue the research group and its projects. Successfully so, as seven of these projects were successfully completed last year. HZ Discovery spoke with Andres Caballero and Evelot Westerink-Duijzer about two of the projects to give an idea of the kind of research the research group focuses on.
Paul Vader, editor HZ Discovery
The research group investigates innovations in logistics, aiming to make the supply chains in Zeeland more efficient, responsive, sustainable, and competitive. This doesn’t involve developing innovative techniques like autonomous vehicles but focuses on the implications of an innovation for a company’s way of working. The research group has a substantial connection with the education provided by the Logistics Engineering program. Currently, this connection is more ad-hoc than structural, but this may change soon as the program will undergo a curriculum revision.
Autonomous shipping in Zeeland
The research group participated in a consortium that explored the possibilities for using autonomous vessels in Zeeland. The so-called Fieldlab Autonomous Shipping Technology (FAST) consisted of several work packages involving many parties both from HZ and beyond.
Work package 1 The first work package was the development of an autonomous vessel, resulting in a working prototype—an autonomous boat that operated for a few months between the center of Vlissingen and the station. Damen was one of the partners.
Work package 2 The second work package aimed to create a platform for autonomous sailing for research and education with a full-sized boat.
Work package 3 The third work package explored the use of robotic vessels in the tourism sector. This included ideas like self-sailing ferries, sightseeing boats with glass bottoms, and even submarines for viewing underwater life and water-based delivery services. HZ Knowledge Center Coastal Tourism played a significant role in this.
Work package 4 The fourth and final work package examined the possibilities of autonomous shipping for the logistics sector in Zeeland. This involved scenarios like container transport over relatively short distances and on busy routes.
Andres Caballero
Andres is trained as an industrial engineer with extensive practical experience in logistics chains in the automotive and chemical industries, covering planning and programming, inventory, logistics, and improvement projects. He completed his bachelor's in his native Colombia and a master's at TU Eindhoven. He currently plans to set up a PhD trajectory.
Evelot Westerink-Duijzer
Evelot studied econometrics in Rotterdam and earned her PhD in the quantitative, mathematical side of logistics. She spent about five years mainly teaching and conducting some research as a scientific lecturer at Erasmus University before joining HZ two years ago.
What was the role of the research group in this project with many different partners?
Andres: “We mainly contributed to the fourth work package. We conducted case studies, interviewed experts, organized workshops, and attended conferences on autonomous shipping. Reports in the form of final reports and articles were also a significant part of our work. In the second work package, we had a coordinating role to streamline the complex innovation from technical partners such as the Data Science, Engineering, Marof, and TU Delft research groups.”
The project was mainly exploratory, looking at the possibilities and challenges of autonomous shipping. What possibilities do you see?
Andres: "In Zeeland, a lot of cargo is transported back and forth between terminals. There are opportunities for self-sailing or remotely controlled ships for distances up to about six kilometers. Ships sometimes have to wait before they can be unloaded. With an autonomous ship, you don’t have to keep paying the captain. Moreover, constantly shuttling back and forth is not exactly the most interesting work for a shipper."
What are the main obstacles?
Andres: “Autonomous shipping involves many different aspects, such as safety, technology, financial feasibility, user experience, and legislation. The latter means that autonomous ships cannot yet be operated. When the Shipping Traffic Act was drafted, there were no self-sailing ships. Therefore, it’s simply not allowed unless exemptions are granted, which makes entrepreneurs hesitant to invest.”
Do users feel comfortable boarding a boat without a captain?
Andres: “That depends on who you ask. Someone who can’t swim or is afraid of water will certainly not board a self-sailing boat. The people we surveyed mentioned safety as the most crucial factor.”
Living lab autonomous transport Zeeland
The research group also explored the possibilities of autonomous transport on land. At the container terminal of Lineage Logistics (formerly Kloosterboer), a trial was conducted with a self-driving terminal tractor developed by Terberg. The tractor can independently transport a container to and from the loading or unloading point. The trial extensively tested how the tractor functioned among other traffic, including pedestrians and cyclists, and under varying weather conditions such as low sunlight and rain.
Was legislation also a significant hurdle here?
Evelot: “The trial was conducted on private property and not on public roads, which provides more flexibility. The intention was to operate on public roads as well, which is possible, but the extensive permit process required made us abandon that plan.”
What was your role in the project?
Evelot: “A graduate student of ours studied how the logistics systems should be set up when using autonomous vehicles. For example, when unloading a ship, a task needs to be sent to the tractor specifying which stack of containers to drive to. We also examined for various companies whether autonomous tractors are economically viable, and it turns out they are. This holds even if the vehicles are not fully autonomous but monitored from a control room. Additionally, we investigated the possibility of having a pool of such tractors shared among different companies. Unfortunately, the companies studied need the tractors at about the same time, so sharing them is very limited.”
Will self-driving vehicles soon be common at container terminals?
Evelot: “It’s not yet a marketable product, but Terberg continues to experiment with the tractor by integrating software from other developers. I understand that Lineage (Kloosterboer) is definitely interested in deploying the terminal tractor when one becomes available.”
Currently, you are operating as an autonomous team without a lector. How is the succession of Thierry Verduijn progressing?
Evelot says the research group is functioning well without a lector, as several new projects have been started following the completion of previous ones. She sees the role of a new lector mainly in the future direction of the research group: “You need someone to steer or guide, to provide direction in research and acquire projects.” Andres adds, “We’ve had a tough year wrapping up all the projects. I think we’ve done well, but it’s always better to have a lector overseeing the optimal quality.”