GANTRY CRANES


An SCX semi- automatic crane lifting nuclear waste.


In the UK, Sheffield-based SCX have also produced


automated cranes for waste to energy, again in a two- crane system. Damien Johnson is director there: “It is about co-ordination,” he says. “The first crane picks the waste from the truck, the next crane transfers it to the furnace bunker. The programming of such automation is fairly standard. “When we are asked to automate any system, the first thing we ask is ‘What does the customer want, what does he need, what loads will he be moving from A to B?’ Then we do some high-level scoping and start to work out the optimum things that need to be activated.” But as we have said, waste-to-energy is relatively easy.


The task is repetitious; the environment is a closed one in which no humans can wander around and be put at risk. Accuracy is not needed; nor does it matter if the


clam-shell grips so tightly that it crushes part of the load. Overall, things are foreseeable. Full autonomy in more complex environments


requires more than this. In particular, it requires awareness of what is around it, which generally means machine vision and probably AI, and both of these involve machine learning. As we know, AI and machine learning have been proceeding at pace – at sometimes frighting pace – over the past couple of years.


Safety first


Safety of course is an issue here. Fully-autonomous cars are now a reality and are on the roads – though not yet in the UK. They have been linked to at least two confirmed deaths in the US since 2018. Human-driven cars, of course, have killed many more than that – but


www.hoistmagazine.com | September 2026 | 23


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