Automatic Intermodal Loading Unit Identification using Computer Vision: A Scoping Review

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Gülsoylu, Emre, Abdelhalim, Alhassan, Boztas, Derya Kara, Grasse, Ole, Jahn, Carlos, Frintrop, Simone, Edinger, Janick
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Gülsoylu, Emre
Abdelhalim, Alhassan
Boztas, Derya Kara
Grasse, Ole
Jahn, Carlos
Frintrop, Simone
Edinger, Janick
author_facet Gülsoylu, Emre
Abdelhalim, Alhassan
Boztas, Derya Kara
Grasse, Ole
Jahn, Carlos
Frintrop, Simone
Edinger, Janick
contents Background: The standardisation of Intermodal Loading Units (ILUs), including containers, semi-trailers, and swap bodies, has transformed global trade, yet efficient and robust identification remains an operational bottleneck in ports and terminals. Objective: To map Computer Vision (CV) methods for ILU identification, clarify terminology, summarise the evolution of proposed approaches, and highlight research gaps, future directions and their potential effects on terminal operations. Methods: Following PRISMA-ScR, we searched Google Scholar and dblp for English-language studies with quantitative results. After dual reviewer screening, the studies were charted across methods, datasets, and evaluation metrics. Results: 63 empirical studies on CV-based solutions for the ILU identification task, published between 1990 and 2025 were reviewed. Methodological evolution of ILU identification solutions, datasets, evaluation of the proposed methods and future research directions are summarised. A shift from static (e.g. OCR-gates) to vehicle mounted camera setups, which enables precise monitoring is observed. The reported results for end-to-end accuracy range from 5% to 96%. Conclusions: We propose standardised terminology, advocate for open-access datasets, codebases and model weights to enable fair evaluation and define future work directions. The shift from static to dynamic camera settings introduces new challenges that have transformative potential for transportation and logistics. However, the lack of public benchmark datasets, open-access code, and standardised terminology hinders the advancements in this field. As for the future work, we suggest addressing the new challenges emerged from vehicle mounted cameras, exploring synthetic data generation, refining the multi-stage methods into unified end-to-end models to reduce complexity, and focusing on contextless text recognition.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_17707
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Automatic Intermodal Loading Unit Identification using Computer Vision: A Scoping Review
Gülsoylu, Emre
Abdelhalim, Alhassan
Boztas, Derya Kara
Grasse, Ole
Jahn, Carlos
Frintrop, Simone
Edinger, Janick
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Background: The standardisation of Intermodal Loading Units (ILUs), including containers, semi-trailers, and swap bodies, has transformed global trade, yet efficient and robust identification remains an operational bottleneck in ports and terminals. Objective: To map Computer Vision (CV) methods for ILU identification, clarify terminology, summarise the evolution of proposed approaches, and highlight research gaps, future directions and their potential effects on terminal operations. Methods: Following PRISMA-ScR, we searched Google Scholar and dblp for English-language studies with quantitative results. After dual reviewer screening, the studies were charted across methods, datasets, and evaluation metrics. Results: 63 empirical studies on CV-based solutions for the ILU identification task, published between 1990 and 2025 were reviewed. Methodological evolution of ILU identification solutions, datasets, evaluation of the proposed methods and future research directions are summarised. A shift from static (e.g. OCR-gates) to vehicle mounted camera setups, which enables precise monitoring is observed. The reported results for end-to-end accuracy range from 5% to 96%. Conclusions: We propose standardised terminology, advocate for open-access datasets, codebases and model weights to enable fair evaluation and define future work directions. The shift from static to dynamic camera settings introduces new challenges that have transformative potential for transportation and logistics. However, the lack of public benchmark datasets, open-access code, and standardised terminology hinders the advancements in this field. As for the future work, we suggest addressing the new challenges emerged from vehicle mounted cameras, exploring synthetic data generation, refining the multi-stage methods into unified end-to-end models to reduce complexity, and focusing on contextless text recognition.
title Automatic Intermodal Loading Unit Identification using Computer Vision: A Scoping Review
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.17707