COSCO debuts battery‑risk inspection robot

A roll-on/roll-off ship is basically a floating parking garage: cars, trucks, and machinery drive on under their own wheels, park deck by deck, and stay there for the voyage. That layout makes loading fast, but it also packs a lot of vehicles into long enclosed spaces where crews may have only minutes to spot a fire. (ics-shipping.org) Lithium-ion batteries add a different kind of fire problem. When a damaged cell overheats, it can trigger thermal runaway, which is a self-feeding chemical reaction that can reignite after the first flames look under control. (iumi.com) Marine insurers and ship operators have been pushing one point for two years straight: find the problem early. The International Union of Marine Insurance said in September 2023 that thermal imaging cameras and artificial-intelligence systems are among the tools that can shorten the gap between first warning and first response. (iumi.com) That pressure has only grown. In February 2025, the International Maritime Organization’s Sub-Committee on Ship Systems and Equipment kept working on fire detection, prevention, and extinguishing rules for ships carrying new energy vehicles in vehicle and roll-on/roll-off spaces. (lr.org) Now COSCO Shipping is trying to turn that industry push into a machine. The company says its new robot, called Zhixunkou, uses multiple sensors and artificial intelligence to inspect roll-on/roll-off cargo and look for lithium-battery risk signals before a small defect turns into a deck fire. (x.com) “Multiple sensors” matters here because one camera sees only one clue. A thermal sensor can catch abnormal heat, a visual camera can spot damage or smoke, and a combined system can check several warning signs at once instead of asking a crew member to walk every lane by eye. (en.coscoshipping.com) (iumi.com) COSCO has been building this kind of “machine plus workflow” system across its network, not just on one ship. In July 2025, the group said its vessel-safety platform was already using multimodal data fusion, more than 150 intelligent models, and over 100 reusable components across more than 40 business scenarios. (en.coscoshipping.com) The robot also fits COSCO’s broader safety push on dangerous cargo paperwork. In September 2024, COSCO Shipping Lines warned shippers to stop hiding or misreporting hazardous goods and said it would charge $30,000 per unit for false, mistaken, omitted, or concealed dangerous-goods declarations. (lines.coscoshipping.com) And in January 2025, COSCO and Global Shipping Business Network ran a pilot to digitize hazardous-cargo certificates so the carrier could verify safety documents faster through accredited laboratories. The robot is the physical side of the same idea: cleaner data before loading, better inspection after loading. (safety4sea.com) None of that means a robot replaces sprinklers, carbon dioxide systems, or crew drills. The Vehicle Carrier Safety Forum’s April 2025 guidance still treats early control with fixed firefighting systems and ship-shore response planning as the backbone of vehicle-fire response. (ics-shipping.org) What COSCO is betting on is simpler than the marketing language: on a ship carrying hundreds or thousands of vehicles, the cheapest fire is the one caught before it becomes a fire. Zhixunkou is an attempt to put that first pair of eyes on rails, sensors, and software instead of on a single crew member walking a dark deck. (x.com) (iumi.com)