DFDS

DFDS, a Danish logistics and international shipping company providing transportation services, supply chain solutions, and warehouse management across Europe and beyond, handles millions of trailers annually through its harbor terminals. Locating individual trailers within these sprawling terminal yards had long been a manual, time-consuming bottleneck — staff physically walked or drove through terminals to find specific units. As operational scale increased and supply chain demands grew more complex, this approach became untenable. Each manual search added friction to vessel loading and discharging cycles, burning fuel, consuming labor hours, and lengthening turnaround times with no clear path to improvement under the existing process.

DFDS consulted UAS Denmark to explore drone-based alternatives, which led to a partnership with Lorenz Technology, a drone software developer. Lorenz built a custom autonomous inspection solution using DJI's Matrice 210 airframe equipped with the Zenmuse XT2 payload — a dual visual and thermal sensor camera capable of supporting computer vision features such as object and ID recognition. Leveraging DJI's onboard SDK, Lorenz developed software that enabled the drones to fly autonomously around terminal grounds, detect and read each trailer's unique identifier, and relay precise location data in real time to operators and truck drivers. The system integrated directly into terminal operations without requiring significant changes to existing ground infrastructure, replacing manual yard checks with continuous, autonomous aerial coverage.

The autonomous drone system delivered measurable operational improvements across DFDS's terminal operations:

• 15 minutes saved per loading and discharging operation — the headline efficiency gain enabling faster vessel turnarounds
• Fuel savings from reduced idle time as truck drivers located loads faster without waiting for manual searches
• Reduced CO2 emissions as a direct downstream effect of shorter dwell times and less vehicle movement
• Lower manpower costs by eliminating the need for dedicated staff to manually walk or drive terminal yards

Truck drivers gained the ability to quickly confirm trailer locations on arrival, reducing congestion and improving throughput across the terminal.

• Autonomous drone patrols can systematically replace manual yard surveys at harbor terminals, delivering consistent per-operation time savings that compound across high-frequency logistics cycles.
• Partnering with domain-specific software developers who can leverage hardware SDKs — rather than building from scratch — significantly reduces deployment complexity for custom industrial AI solutions.
• Computer vision for asset ID recognition delivers cascading ROI: a single accuracy improvement simultaneously reduces time, fuel consumption, emissions, and labor costs.
• Engaging specialist intermediaries (such as UAS Denmark) to identify the right solution partner can accelerate the path from business problem to working deployment.
• Thermal and visual sensor combinations on drone payloads expand future optionality beyond location tracking into condition monitoring and security inspection.