The domestic technology for an automatic mooring system that helps autonomous ships safely and efficiently anchor in ports without wires is being developed, and it is expected that port safety will be significantly enhanced by fundamentally preventing human casualties caused by wire breakage.

The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (President Ryu Seok-hyun) announced on the 18th that the research team led by Senior Researcher Yongjin Kim of the Reliability Research Lab of the Virtual Engineering Platform Research Center has developed an automatic mooring system that automatically secures a ship to a port.

This is a technology that can safely moor a ship through integrated control of a vacuum suction pad and a four-degree-of-freedom hydraulic mechanism.

In the past, workers used thick ropes (mooring lines) to directly anchor ships in ports. This method required high strength depending on the size and weight of the ship. There was a possibility of accidents if the wire broke, and the mooring work of manually securing it to the port required considerable manpower and time.

The biggest advantage of the newly developed automatic mooring system is that it can safely secure a ship without a person having to directly tie a line.

Vacuum suction pads help to secure the ship to the port, and the hydraulic system automatically controls it.

This will greatly improve the accuracy and speed of mooring work, reducing the risk of human casualties while speeding up work and resolving manpower shortages.

“The automated mooring system we developed this time is a key technology that helps autonomous ships safely dock in ports, and will play an essential role in smart ports,” said Kim Yong-jin, a senior researcher who led the research. “We expect it to go beyond the existing manual mooring method and increase the safety and efficiency of the marine industry.”

Meanwhile, this research was conducted as a project of 'Development of an automatic mooring system' among the 'Development of smart port-autonomous ship linkage technology' project of the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, and was selected as one of the 'Top 10 Mechanical Technologies of the Year in Korea' hosted by the Korea Federation of Machinery and Engineering Societies. The technology development is scheduled to be completed by verifying the final performance at sea in 2025 and promoting commercialization thereafter.