The development of autonomous GSE was discussed during the digitisation session, The advance of autonomous GSE in the Americas, which heard from Richard Reno, CEO of TractEasy, Dana Borschewski, Regional VP Americas at Aurrigo, and Josh Parkin, Senior Sales Manager, New Technology Products at Oshkosh AeroTech.
Deploying autonomous GSE requires input from authorities, regulators and other relevant parties, which is inconsistent.
In the USA, Reno said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not been involved until recently.
He told the audience that TractEasy was preparing to deploy autonomous GSE and the FAA were informed who followed up with a letter demanding deployments stop because they did not know what was going on.
“I would say there has been everything from ‘yep, do what you want, not our problem’ to ‘oh my god what are we doing’. As the regulations and experience is not there, it is site specific,” said Reno.
TractEasy is embracing FAA involvement and Reno believes it will help set standards and provide consistent guidelines.
The audience member who asked the question about official involvement continued by asking where are the regulations and standards coming from. Reno said IATA are working on recommendations, admitting it is complicated.
Borschewski said there is an enhanced and autonomous GSE working group that several companies are involved in.
Pictured: Aurrigo's AutoDolly-Tug
Aurrigo has a digital twin of airside operations, which runs simulations before and during deployments to see what happens and to create efficiencies within operations, said Borschewski.
This is analysed with fire chiefs or police officers if they want, which varies per site.
Standards and operations vary across different regions so every deployment is a learning experience.
This discussion about regulators followed earlier comments by Reno when he admitted that an incident involving an autonomous vehicle not at TractEasy’s level of automation keeps him up at night.
“If you look at what happened in the automotive space with autonomous vehicles all over the road, a couple of accidents and it’s dead. People are predicting it will be 10 years before a large-scale return in the automotive space. I worry that could happen in our space,” he said.
This hypothetical scenario will not happen with one of TractEasy’s vehicles, said Reno, because they are CE-compliant, and so is every revision of the software added to the product line so bugs are not introduced that could jeopardise safety.
The discussion about deploying GSE and working with regulators followed the speakers giving presentations about their companies and where they think autonomous GSE has the greatest potential.
Reno was the first to give a presentation on behalf of TractEasy, the joint venture between TLD and EasyMile, which was formed by the two leading companies when they saw the second generation of the technology taking off so it was decided to go down the autonomous route at full speed, Reno explained.
EasyMile was selling the EZTow in the industrial space and TLD was selling it in airports so the joint venture means TractEasy is responsible for scaling it in both sectors. The EZDolly is aimed at the cargo sector and production will start next year.
Self-driving cars are only at level 2 automation, said Reno, while technology TLD has introduced is level 3 for self-docking of equipment like loaders or stairs. TractEasy’s products are level 4, which means there is no safety driver and it can be sent to do its tasks.
TLD introduced Aircraft Safe Docking over 13 years ago, which reduces speed as equipment approaches an aircraft to reduce the opportunity for impact and the severity if there is an impact.
This has evolved into ASD+, which is available on cargo loaders and other equipment, plotting a course and docking at aircraft doors with greater accuracy without the barcodes or targets which customers did not like due to the way it looked.
The industrial sector is far ahead of aviation with Reno saying 70% of factories have AGVs and when outdoor AGVs came on the market, they were just the next step in the journey.
The automated industrial space is worth over $200 billion and will double in the next five years.
Airport automation will be worth under $8 billion by 2028, which Reno says is very little and the TractEasy team are eager to change that.
Reno said: “The industry is talking about industry 4.0, which is about this next step and airports, let’s be honest, are still at airport 1.0. There is some discussion about airport 2.0 but we really need to step up if we are going to get there.”
The technology is ready, said Reno, while airports and their customers are still in the analysis and testing phases while industry is scaling and integrating autonomous technology.
Airports are complex, he admitted, and if data is not made available, this makes it hard to make a use case, with Reno saying he has only worked with one European airport who could produce the data in a spreadsheet to calculate the necessary return on investment.
TractEasy’s products are IT infrastructure-light but if you want to integrate a fleet of autonomous vehicles, you need a fleet management system tied into flight control and baggage systems.
Airports are high-risk environments so resistance to change is understandable, said Reno.
He said the greatest successes came from customers with a long-term focus where the CEO believes in the technology so the team below can make automation happen.
Upgrading fleets is a large investment so fleets need to be optimised with a good fleet management system is essential to use autonomous vehicles efficiently was his final point.
Borschewski was next, representing Aurrigo, which was established in 1993 by two electronics engineers in the automotive space and has worked with British car companies including Aston Martin, Bentley and Jaguar Land Rover.
Aurrigo entered aviation in 2018 with the AutoDolly at London’s Heathrow Airport, in partnership with British Airways, which Borschewski believes is the vehicle of the future because it could carry ULDs by itself without a driver.
Realising that the aviation industry was not ready for such a vehicle, it evolved into the AutoDolly-Tug.
Manoeuvring in tight situations and docking aligned to specific areas is important so Aurrigo created a sideways drive system, which allows the vehicles to come within 200mm of the castor deck or wherever it needs to load.
Aurrigo's AutoDolly-Tug
The AutoDolly-Tug needs to manoeuvre around other vehicles so a tank turn was created so it can turn 360 degrees on itself or manoeuvre at different angles.
A height-adjustable chassis was also developed so it can kneel down or rise up to make transferring ULDs simpler.
Aurrigo has deployed its vehicles at Changi International Airport, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Stuttgart Airport and Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, and more projects will be announced soon.
Partnership, understanding and open communication are necessary for success, said Borschewski, saying that Aurrigo is in discussions with partners to further enhance the technology.
The technology is being pushed areas such as extreme weather, as Canada can get very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter with heavy snow, which made Ottawa an ideal location for Aurrigo’s North American headquarters.
Agreeing with Reno, Borschewski said: “The vehicles are ready, it is about finding partners that are interested in innovating and moving the technology forwards and scaling it. We are moving quickly but it’s looking at regulations and comfort level in working with the side and under the wings of planes.”
Parkin was the last speaker, using it as an opportunity to introduce Oshkosh AeroTech to the world for its first conference since Oshkosh Corporation acquired JBT AeroTech last year.
JetDock technology
Oshkosh AeroTech tries to take a straightforward approach to autonomy of looking at repetitious and structured jobs, identify safety-critical operations and think about the human factor for roles that are not value added.
As a large corporation, other Oshkosh business divisions have done work with autonomous technology such as the defence sector, which can be applied to the GSE sector.
Aircraft proximity detection is not new and 60% of Oshkosh AeroTech’s cargo loaders are fitted with the technology, which is set up to the specifications of how customers want it to approach aircraft, stopping before an incident can happen.
JetDock is the next step where the docking and undocking process is fully autonomous without a target as LiDAR identifies the aircraft’s door and gets as close as required.
Parkin said: “There is over $5 billion of aircraft damage a year and the average damage from a GSE strike is over $200,000. It is a big problem in the industry, this immediately helps solve that and it is able to identify other obstructions such as humans.”
Three customers have standardised their fleet with JetDock technology and numbers are rising. Oshkosh AeroTech estimates the average cargo loader does 30-50,000 docks throughout its lifetime so reducing the risk of collisions with aircraft could save a lot of money, said Parkin.
Staff turnover is a consistent challenge customers report so simplifying aircraft docking is important to them.
“We are excited about this advancement and excited to work with our customers to implement this within their fleets. We are using the same technology for our boarding bridges so you can imagine it being deployed for the same reasons. If you think about those tasks which are highly repetitive and are critical to person and aircraft safety, eliminating that risk brings a lot of peace of mind for our customers,” said Parkin as he concluded his presentation.
The 8th Americas GHI Conference was held at the Sheraton Centre in Toronto, Canada from 25-27 June 2024. The 9th Americas GHI Conference will be held at the Rosen Shingle Creek resort in Orlando, Florida, USA from 3-5 June 2025. Click here for more information.
