GANTRY CRANES
GH is running no less than six AI-powered projects, with the aim of integrating AI into its end products.
in the material handling operations of a factory where the crane is just one part of the equation. It can monitor what is moved, and where it is moved to, and when. It can be transferred to enterprise resource planning systems and storage management systems to seamlessly support the overall management of material flows within a facility.” “The scope of the project could be broadened from
computer vision methods to researching the optimal balance between efficiency, safety, and sustainability in crane operations,” says Ruotsalainen says. Upgrading an existing crane can add elements
of automation simply as a by-product. Ian Knight is application engineer at CP Automation, who supply components for exactly those procedures. “Recently we upgraded a crane for a major steel
producer,” he says. “It was handling high-temperature steel and molten metal, and the VFD drive controlling its hoist motor had failed. We were able to fit a newer-model CR700 drive in its place, which is specially designed for hoist and travel applications. “Technologies have moved on. There are features in the newer drive that weren’t available in the older one. For example, we were able to add Safe Torque Off, which is a hardware switch in the drives that prevents any output to the motor unless all the safety requirements are met – so it is an automated safety feature that is well worth having.”
Full autonomy Some automation requires a change of behaviour from operators. “Much of our business involves retrofitting,” Knight says. “We supply inverter drives for example, which can be programmed to automatically slow the trolley and bridge at the optimum pace. Operators frequently use reverse direction to do that,” (not very different from putting a car into reverse gear to slow it
down) “which imposes a sudden deceleration and puts a lot of stresses and strain on the mechanics. Inverter drive will not let the operator do that. It will force you to ramp down slowly. You can pre-programme it to automatically follow any deceleration curve that you want – either an optimum one, or a hockey-stick shape if you like where the change is gradual at first then much quicker, but an optimum one is obviously preferable; and that will put much less strain on the machine, both steelworks and electrics, so you will need less maintenance and you will give your crane a much longer life-span. “We have a high-profile project at the moment which is a military application for transporting nuclear fuel. And that will have encoders on the travel motions as well as the hoisting because it has to deliver pinpoint accuracy and you can’t risk any spillages; so there will be monitoring all round on that crane.” “Technology has moved on a lot in the past ten years. It depends, of course, on the scenario and the equipment, but if your current equipment is over that age you would probably be wanting to look at some upgrades. You can make it as complex as you want it to be or as simple as you want it to be; but when you’ve done one of these retrofits, the difference in performance, in smoothness, in ease of operation, in accuracy will be really noticeable,” adds Knight. And you may get Level One, Level Two or Level Three automation as a bonus as well. Levels Four and Five? You may have to wait – but not for very long. “The fully autonomous crane will come,” says Johnson. Full autonomy is already here for warehousing, where AI-driven trolleys are running around to take small components to shelves or delivering them. Lifting, on the other hand, carries more risk and more layers of complexity. But there will come a moment, Johnson explains, where AI will be trusted to take control. “It will come. I guarantee it.”
www.hoistmagazine.com | September 2026 | 27
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