AI-supported inspection of container gantry cranes at the Port of Hamburg

In 2021, HHLA handled a total of 6.9 million standard container equivalents. HHLA operates over 50 container gantry cranes to load and unload this enormous volume of freight onto and off the ships as quickly as possible.

Any downtime of the gantry cranes due to maintenance and inspection leads to considerable costs. With the help of automated drone flights, it is possible to significantly reduce the inspection times of the gantry cranes. During the drone flight, high-resolution images are taken, which are analysed and evaluated in the subsequent process using a two-stage AI solution. The result of this AI solution is made available to users in an intuitive web application. The inspection team can efficiently recognise defective areas such as rust and enter repair orders.

In the future, it should also be possible to analyse critical areas over time in order to automatically derive predictions about the further development of this weld seam or bolted joint.