Airports Will Have Autonomous Vehicles Like This To Carry Our Luggage In The Future

When a flight is delayed, there can be a number of reasons, but this airline partnered will some other firms to terminate one of those causes. In particular, the Air France is testing the first-ever autonomous luggage tug in the world with the aim of speeding up the processing of delivering luggage from and to a plane as well as streamlining operations at the airport in general.

The vehicle in question is the AT135 baggage tractor, which started going under official testing at an airport in France on November 15. At first glance, you may not notice anything different about this vehicle, it still has a cab, a seat for the driver, a steering wheel, along with all the needed controls. But a closer look will reveal the hardware upgrades seen in autonomous vehicles. There are LIDAR sensors on its roof for laser scanning as well as bumper under which are a bunch of sensors such as GPS, and cameras on the back and front to provide a 360-degree view.

Inside the tug, on the control board, there is a switch to choose between autonomous and manual modes, a touchscreen displaying the airport map that features the gates the tug has to service.

As soon as the tug is loaded with all the baggage, which can be as much as 25 tons, a ground crew member just needs to tap the gate and the plane where the bags need to go. Then the tug will navigate itself to the destination at 24 km/h, and it complies with all the traffic laws in the airport while avoiding obstacles such as other vehicles and people. Once the baggage has been unloaded from the tug, it will come back on the same route and another process starts.

One of the best things about autonomous vehicles like this is that we can improve efficiency and safety by removing the human driver. By accessing GPS, the tug gains detailed knowledge of the traffic at the airport, helping it plan the best route to fetch the luggage to minimize mistakes and delays.