Containerisation represents one of the biggest paradigm shifts in maritime shipping. Packing goods in standardised containers dramatically increased port productivity and can be considered a major enabler of globalisation. While the low-hanging fruits of container operations have been automated (automated STS cranes, automated yard cranes, AGVs, twistlock robots, etc), the lashing and unlashing of lashing bars is still a manual, physically demanding, non-ergonomic task done by humans that has evaded automation all attempts at automation since its invention by the Matson Company in 1958. In order to automate lashing, a lashing robot needs to be developed.

This project aims to automate lashing by putting together several novel methods that, when combined together, elegantly automates on-vessel lashing/unlashing operations. Our automated lashing system takes the form of Automatic Lashing Bars (ALBs) and Lashing Robots. Our first Lashing Robot Hardware Demonstrator, Vasco, is named after Vasco from Starfield and the 16th century explorer Vasco da Gamma.