Hands-free charging systems developed by Rocsys will support a fleet of thirty self-driving terminal tractors, allowing them to recharge without requiring humans to manually connect and disconnect them.

The two companies plan to integrate Rocsys’ ‘ROC-1’ hands-free charger with Aidrivers’ autonomous digital infrastructure which allows terminal tractors to drive themselves safely in the port.

By combining Rocsys’ hands-free charger with Unikie’s ‘Marshalling Solution’, the partners aim to eliminate the need for human drivers to manually park the vehicle in the charging bay and hook it up to the charger.

There are some ideas that seem so obvious upon their introduction that one wonders why somebody did not think of it earlier. A hands-free charger that automatically plugs into an electric vehicle and unplugs from it when finished surely qualifies as a not-so-obvious obvious idea. It makes perfect sense – given the potential dangers of handling high-voltage equipment, and also given the prospect of driverless vehicles – to develop chargers that do not require a human to operate them. After speaking to Erin Galiger – who is director of the North American market for Dutch tech firm Rocsys – at the latest ACT Expo, I learned that hands-free chargers have several more applications than I had initially expected.

Using EasyMile’s autonomous driving technology and Rocsys’ ‘ROC-1’ hands-free charger, the two companies plan to completely automate the process of recharging a self-driving electric vehicle.

Autocar Chairman, Andrew Taitz said that setting up hands-free charging at terminals would improve efficiency and therefore boost productivity in yard operations.

Rocsys will use the money to scale up and bring its product - an autonomous charger for electric vehicles - to market in the United States and Europe.

‘ROC-1’ is robotic charger which wirelessly communicates with the vehicle to insert the cable into the charging port and to remove the cable when charging is done.