The “ Shanghai Maritime University Port Simulation & Emulation Platform,” designed and constructed by YM Tech for Shanghai Maritime University, has been successfully deployed and put into use. Based on the industry-leading FlexSim simulation engine, the platform has built a high-fidelity, full-process digital twin system for automated container terminals, aiming to deeply integrate teaching, scientific research and industrial practice in the field of smart ports.
Modeled after the Guangzhou Nansha Phase IV Automated Container Terminal, the platform meticulously reproduces its core layout, equipment configuration and operational processes. It fully simulates the entire chain of operational scenarios, from vessel berthing and container loading/unloading to horizontal conveyance and yard storage/retrieval, realizing real-time dynamic mapping of the terminal’s production and operational status as well as twin linkage of performance data. It provides an advanced visual and data-driven analysis tool for terminal process analysis, bottleneck diagnosis and scenario pre-evaluation.
Strictly adhering to the operational logic and system parameters of real terminals, the platform can seamlessly connect and simulate the Terminal Operating System (TOS) and Equipment Control System (ECS). It provides students and researchers with a highly realistic training and experimental environment, strongly supporting the cultivation of high-quality, application-oriented talents in the port and shipping field.
Integrating multiple innovative designs and key technologies, the platform boasts the following core advantages:
- Modularity and Reusability: Provides a flexibly configurable terminal simulation model library, supporting the rapid setup of simulation projects with different scales and layouts, and significantly improving research and planning efficiency.
- System Openness and Integration Capability: Features an open architecture with standard interfaces for external systems or simulators such as TOS, intelligent dispatching systems and ECS, supporting multi-system linkage simulation.
- High-Precision Equipment and Control Simulation: Achieves high-precision dynamics and control system simulation for key equipment including Rail Mounted Gantry Cranes (RMGs), Ship-to-Shore Cranes (STS cranes) and Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs), with built-in multi-equipment anti-collision logic that complies with actual safety regulations.
- Scalable Fleet and Interface Management Capability: Supports elastic scaling of transport fleets such as AGVs and container trucks, and reserves abundant external data interaction interfaces to ensure the platform’s long-term evolution capability.
- Panoramic Intelligent Monitoring Display: Equipped with a professional simulation monitoring large screen, which can display the terminal’s overall operational dynamics, equipment status and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in real time and intuitively.
- Refined AGV Energy Management: Innovatively models AGV battery consumption, charging processes and charging pile queuing strategies, providing a model foundation for research on terminal green operations and AGV dispatching.
- Visual Process Orchestration: Supports flexible definition and adjustment of operational workflows and process logic through a graphical interface, meeting various needs such as teaching demonstrations, solution comparison and optimization research.
The successful collaboration between YM Tech and Shanghai Maritime University is a model of industry-academia-research collaborative innovation. The completion of this platform not only provides first-class domestic teaching and research infrastructure for port and shipping disciplines, but also offers a high-quality simulation verification environment for the independent R&D, system testing and operational optimization of automated terminal technology in China. It will exert a positive and far-reaching impact on the digital development of smart ports and the cultivation of professional talents.
