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Multi-View Point Cloud Registration Method for Automated Disassembly of Container Twist Locks

Chao Mi; Teng Wang; Xintai Man; Mengjie He; Zhiwei Zhang; Yang Shen
Journal of Marine Science and Engineering · Vol. 14, Issue 7 · pp. 605 · 2026

Abstract

With the continuous expansion of maritime trade scale, ports have put forward increasingly higher requirements for transshipment efficiency. Container twist lock disassembly is a key link in the loading and unloading process, and its automation level has a significant impact on the ship’s berthing time at the port. Aiming at the demand of automated disassembly for high-precision 3D vision, this paper proposes a multi-view point cloud local registration method for twist lock recognition. First, Hierarchical Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (HDBSCAN) is used to extract the keyhole region with the highest overlap in multi-view point clouds, reducing the interference from non-overlapping structures. Then, a two-stage strategy of “coarse registration + fine registration” is adopted: initial alignment is achieved through Random Sample Consensus (RANSAC), and the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm is improved by combining adaptive distance threshold and normal consistency constraint to complete fine registration. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the global registration scheme in both accuracy and efficiency: the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) is reduced to 2.15 mm, the Relative Mean Distance (RMD) is reduced to 1.81 mm, and the registration time is approximately 2.41 s. Compared with global registration, the efficiency is improved by 44.2%, which can meet the real-time requirements of continuous operation at automated terminals for the perception link and the time constraints for subsequent manipulator control. The research results preliminarily verify the application potential of this method in the scenario of automated twist lock disassembly.

Bibliographic Information

JournalJournal of Marine Science and Engineering
PublisherMDPI
Publication Date2026-03-25
Publication Year2026
Volume14
Issue7
Pages605
Document TypeJournal Article
eISSN2077-1312
DOI10.3390/jmse14070605
SubjectMarine science; oceanography; marine engineering; coastal science; marine environment

Access Information

NARA Access CoverageOA / free full text
Journal Homepagehttps://www.mdpi.com/journal/jmse
Publisher PageOpen Publisher Page
This article is openly available from the publisher.