This Department for Culture, Media and Sports funded project under the 5G Testbeds and Trials programme brought together the technological advancements in the fields of 5G, IoT and predictive data analytics to improve the efficiency of the operation of the quay cranes at the Port of Felixstowe. It also showed how the use of 5G technology, replacing fibre optical cable, would improve the performance of remote-control yard cranes enabling the port to increase both efficiency and safety and develop new skills amongst its workforce. The predictive maintenance use case from this project was monitoring the condition of the critical components of the cranes using low-cost IoT sensors to collect information on the vibration, temperature, acoustics etc. The speed, low latency, and high capacity of 5G were harnessed to send high volumes of data generated by the IoT sensors for the artificial intelligence-based predictive maintenance system. This system was able to detect anomalies in the cranes and alert the operators so that preventive maintenance can be targeted at these areas before the failure happens.

The project demonstrated the effectiveness of AI using 5G IoT to improve the efficiency of quay cranes by reducing their downtime attributable to component failures and thereby increasing their availability and moves per hour.

People

Prof. Ajith Kumar Parlikad

Dr. Manu Sasidharan

Dr. Manuel Herrera

Dr. Jorge Merino Garcia

Adolfo Crespo del Castillo

Project Partners

Hutchison Ports

Bluemesh Solutions Ltd

Three UK