March 07, 2012 11:37am ETRobot Balloon Cranes Could Revolutionize World's Seaports Sky Crane Cargo Ships

A robotic sky crane held aloft by balloons could revolutionize world trade by allowing ships to offload cargo anywhere. Credit: Jeremy Wiley Tethered Air View full size image

Every U.S. good sold overseas or iPad shipped from China makes one of 500 million journeys aboard ship containers crossing the world's oceans each year — a journey that ends at deep-water ports capable of docking and offloading the world's biggest cargo ships. Now a U.S. entrepreneur wants to give every city or town an instant seaport with his vision for robot cranes floating in the sky beneath giant balloons.

Such a system could span the 50-mile (80 kilometers) long Panama Canal that connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to help move containers during shipping traffic gridlock, or could enable rapid supply lines for the U.S. Navy and Marines when supporting military operations or humanitarian relief efforts during disasters. Most importantly, it could turn shipping economics upside down for 90 percent of the world's trade goods by offloading containers from offshore ships without any harbors or seaports.

"There are thousands of cities along every coast where there is a major port in the vicinity, and those small cities want to compete with that major port," said Jeremy Wiley, founder of Tethered Air. "It would absolutely disrupt the opportunity for ports to be established."

The robot crane consists of a cargo-lifting body suspended from four payload cables that in turn connect to four vertical anchor cables. Those anchor cables join together with a huge balloon at the pinnacle to form a pyramid shape — a design that allows the robot crane to move anywhere within that space by shortening and extending its own suspension cables or sliding up and down the anchor cables.

Tethered Air's sky crane concept could help move cargo when the Panama Canal's shipping lanes are backed up.Credit: Jeremy Wiley Tethered AirView full size image

From the Vietnam War to the NFL

Wiley first began thinking about the idea as a U.S. Marine helping offload ships in Kuwait during the U.S. military buildup for the Iraq War. He found past examples of Canadian loggers trying basic balloon and cable systems to move fallen trees down mountainsides to nearby roads, as well as a 1976 experiment by the U.S. military to do ship-to-shore cargo transfer during the Vietnam War.

Such early experiments faltered because it took too long for winched cables to drag the balloons back and forth — the Canadian loggers turned to helicopters and the U.S. military simply gave up despite port backlogs for its supply ships being over six months long.

But the rise of robotics has allowed Wiley to envision the robot crane moving around on payload cables separate from the stationary balloon and its anchor cable system. That system mimics how the NFL's Skycam moves above the action on a football field, except that the Tethered Air cables would eventually connect to a giant balloon rather than the four corners of the stadium.

"The cable robotics you see in an NFL game would be the same robotics keeping the balloon stationary," Wiley told InnovationNewsDaily. "That's the real key here. The balloon can be stationary and not have to deal with aerodynamic effects."

This pendulum-swing balloon system was considered by Oregon State University researchers for helping loggers move timber down a mountainside.Credit: Eldon Olsen et. al Oregon State UniversityView full size image

Giving an idea lift

The Tethered Air idea of using semi-autonomous robotic control represents an "evolutionary" step in harnessing the power of balloons, said Leon Eversfield, a lighter-than-air expert in the U.K. He assisted Swedish aeronaut Per Lindstrand and British billionaire Richard Branson on their record-breaking hot air balloon voyages across the Atlantic Ocean.

"There's a lot of technology built in the balloon fabric price per square foot, but it's relatively low-cost in the overall scheme of things," Eversfield explained.

Balloons have also proven their power in more recent times. In 2002, Eversfield helped a company called CargoLifter show how a 200-foot-wide balloon could lift a 55-ton military tank in the air. Canadian astronomers also demonstrated the stability of a balloon and cable system — they used it to hold a telescope's receiver in the air above a ground reflector with an alignment accuracy of two centimeters even during wind gusts.

Wiley's idea has stirred interest among robotics researchers at Harvard University and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and he believes he can create the system based on off-the-shelf commercial technologies. But he has yet to find serious funding despite trying a crowd-funded Kickstarter project online.

Robot balloon cranes might slash costs for major shipping ports -- or make give them new competition.Credit: Port of L.A.View full size image

Moving the world

Still, Wiley remains optimistic about his approach. It's possible that balloons are in his blood — he claims to be a descendant of Captain Herbert Wiley, a U.S. Navy aviator who served aboard the Navy's USS Macon and USS Akron blimps. Captain Wiley also became the only officer to survive the crash of the USS Akron on April 4, 1933.

A scale-size Tethered Air demonstration might cost $30,000 to show how it could move a 10 to 50 pound payload around an area of about a square mile. But even a full setup would only require $7 million to $10 million for moving full-size containers from ship to shore (or vice versa), according to Wiley's estimates. He hopes to someday offer his services for "zero capital cost" to developing countries, and even share some of the revenue he gets with local governments.

"That zero-capital opportunity means they're getting money immediately from the first container I move," Wiley said. "I think it would explode in the developing world if they saw how it was profiting a local community to create a port environment."

The U.S. military might have also found such instant offloading operations useful when it sent ships and troops to assist Haiti in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people. The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps spent $20 million just to deploy a temporary pier over a period of about a month, so that it could begin offloading needed supplies.

"I think it could be set up in a matter of hours," Wiley said. "This entire equipment could be airlifted to the disaster site, set up in a couple of hours, and provide full-relief disaster from sea."

机器人气球式起重机可以彻底改变世界海港的空中起重机

Robot气球起重机可以彻底改变世界的港口城市，天空起重机货物Ships 允许船舶卸载气球高高举起可以彻底改变世界贸易的机器人天空起重机货物的任何地方。图片来源：杰里米·威利系留空中查看原图

每一个美国良好的海外出售或iPad从中国运来使5亿旅途船上集装箱每年＆mdash穿越世界上的海洋之一;一个旅程，在能够对接和卸载世界上最大的货轮的深水港口结束。现在，一个美国企业家希望给每一个城市或城镇的即时海港与他设想的机器人起重机浮在下方巨型气球.

这样的系统可以跨越50英里（80公里），长巴拿马运河连接大西洋天空和太平洋，以帮助移动集装箱运输交通瘫痪时，或在灾难支持军事行动和人道主义救援工作时，可以使美国海军和海军陆战队的快速补给线。最重要的是，它可以把通过卸载从海上集装箱船舶，没有任何港口或港口.

u0026 QUOT航运经济倒挂90％的世界贸易商品;有成千上万沿着每个沿海城市，那里是在主要港口附近，而那些小城市要与主要港口的竞争，＆QUOT;说杰里米·威利，系留航空的创始人。 ＆QUOT;它绝对会破坏要建立港口有机会与QUOT;

机器人起重机由货物升力体悬浮从四个有效载荷线缆依次连接到四个垂直锚索。这些锚索联合起来与一个巨大的气球在顶峰，形成一个金字塔的形状和mdash;一个设计，使机器人起重机通过缩短和扩大自己的悬索或上下滑动的锚索移动任何地方的空间内。

系留空中的天空起重机概念可以帮助时，巴拿马运河的航运线路备份搬货.Credit：杰里米·威利栓鸟瞰图原图

从越南战争到NFL

威利第一次开始思考这个想法作为美国海军陆战队帮助美国扩军备战的伊拉克战争期间，卸载船在科威特。他发现过去的加拿大伐木工人的例子试图基本气球和有线电视系统由美国军方将倒下的大树倒了山腰附近的道路，以及一个1976年的实验做船到岸货物转运越南战争.

这样的过程中早期的实验动摇，因为它花了太长的吊线拖动气球来回＆mdash;加拿大伐木工人转向直升机和美军简单地放弃了，尽管港口积压为其补给舰是半年以上长期.

但机器人技术的兴起，使得威利想象机器人起重机负载电缆走动从静止分离气球和锚索体系。该系统模拟如何NFL的Skycam移动上述一个足球场上的动作，除了将栓空气电缆将最终连接到一个巨大的气球而不是四个角体育场.

u0026 QUOT的;该电缆机器人你在一个NFL看到游戏将是相同的机器人保持所述球囊固定，＆QUOT;威利告诉InnovationNewsDaily。 ＆QUOT;这是这里的真正关键。该气囊可以是静止的，而不是要处理的空气动力学效应和QUOT;

这个钟摆的摆动气囊系统被认为是由美国俄勒冈州立大学的研究人员帮助记录仪移动木材下来mountainside.Credit：埃尔登Olsen等。人俄勒冈州立UniversityView原图

赋予一个想法电梯

使用半自主机器人控制的系留空中想法代表和QUOT;进化;踩在利用气球的力量，说莱昂Eversfield，在英国，他轻于空气的专家协助瑞典飞艇每Lindstrand和英国亿万富翁理查德·布兰森在横跨大西洋.

他们破纪录的热气球航行;有很多的技术建在每平方英尺气囊织物的价格，但它的成本相对较低的事物的总体方案， Eversfield解释.

气球也证明了他们的权力在更近的时候。 2002年，Eversfield帮助一家名为CargoLifter显示一个200英尺宽的气球如何能举起55吨的军用坦克在空中。加拿大天文学家们还展示了一个气球，电缆系统和mdash的稳定性;他们用它即使在阵风持有以上两厘米的对准精度地面反射空中望远镜的接收器.

威利的想法已经引起了中机器人的研究人员在哈佛大学和美国航空航天局喷气推进实验室的兴趣，他认为自己可以基于关的现成商用技术创建系统。但是，他还没有发现严重的资金，尽管试图人群资助Kickstarter的项目在线.

机器人气球起重机可能大幅削减成本的主要航运港口 - 或作出给他们新的

动天下

尽管如此，威利仍对他的做法持乐观态度。这可能是因为气球是在他的血液＆mdash;他声称自己是队长赫伯特·威利，美国海军飞行员谁担任登上海军的梅肯号和USS阿克伦飞艇的后裔。队长威利也成为到USS阿克伦坠毁生存于4月4日的唯一的官员，1933年.

A规模大小的系留空中下载演示可能花费$ 30,000展示它如何能移动10到??50磅有效载荷各地的大约面积一平方英里。但是，即使一个完整的安装程序将只需要$ 700万$ 1000万移动全尺寸的集装箱从船到岸（反之亦然），根据威利的估计。他希望有一天能提供他的服务为＆QUOT;零资金成本和QUOT;对发展中国家，甚至分享一些他会与当地政府.

的收入，那零资本的机会意味着他们会立即从第一容器我动，与QUOT财路;威利说。 [我认为它在发展中世界会爆炸，如果他们看到它是如何获利当地社区创造一个港口环境和QUOT;

美军可能也发现了这样的即时卸载操作时非常有用，当它派出舰艇和部队在2010年的大地震，造成数万人的善后协助海地。美国海军和海军陆战队花费$ 20个仅为百万部署临时码头历时约一个月，这样就可以开始卸载的物资.