This is how a robot sees an airport ramp! ✈️
What you see is the live output of the perception module inside their
@AeroVectAV Driver, detecting and tracking aircraft, vehicles and people in real time.
The module fuses sensor data, object tracking and localisation into a single picture of the airside.
The ramp is an underrated place to run autonomy. It's private property with rules, which sounds easy until you look at what's actually moving there.
Aircraft weighing tens of tonnes, tugs, belt loaders, fuel trucks and people on foot, in a space with few lane markings, in every kind of weather, around the clock.
The cost of one mistake next to an aircraft gets measured in delayed flights and damaged airframes.
AeroVect was founded in 2020 by Eugenio Donati and Raymond Wang, and the product is a retrofit rather than a new vehicle.
The Driver installs onto baggage and cargo tractors from the major OEMs, using lidar, cameras and GPS for 360° perception.
The business case underneath it is labour. Ground handling has been hit hard by workforce volatility, and a tractor that runs the same route every shift regardless of staffing is a different kind of asset.
Pretty awesome application for a specialized robotics! ;)
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