Uncrewed Systems Technology 049 - April/May 2023

68 Insight | UGVs moving on to pick up luggage deposited in check-in zones for delivery to their planes before take-off. On top of that, fusion of sensor data from real-time perception systems can ensure they intelligently avoid or navigate around obstacles such as shuttles, technicians or flocks of birds that can appear without prior warning. Aurrigo International knows this only too well. Following its success in using autonomous shuttle buses to allow Covid- safe passenger transport at the 2020 ISPS Handa Wales Open golf tournament ( UST 36, February/March 2021), it has gone on to develop other autonomous ground vehicle solutions, including two for airport loading and unloading. Its Auto-Dolly and Auto-DollyTug use Lidar, cameras andGNSS to achieve full autonomy and prevent collisions when navigating through outdoor zones in airports as well as indoor areas such as warehouses and baggage loading or unloading ports. The Auto-Dolly can carry up to 1.5 tons in a ULD (unit load device, an industry- standard luggage container) on its flatbed, while the Auto-DollyTug can carry up to 1.7 tons and towup to four additional dollies, each loadedwith a 1.5 ton ULD, giving a total carrying capacity of 7.7 tons. The company began working with Changi Airport Group (CAG), in Singapore, in October 2022 to trial and jointly develop the UGVs to meet CAG’s aim of automating its baggage tractor operations, which had been suffering from labour shortages (a problem faced by airports worldwide). In a notable contrast with other autonomous airport tractor solutions, the Auto-Dolly and Auto-DollyTug have been successfully used at Changi to unload their ULDs themselves onto their subsequent loading systems, known as Skyloaders. That has eliminated the need for intermediate machinery and workers typically used to move ULDs between baggage tractors and the Skyloaders. Also, as both UGVs are fully battery- powered, they are viewed by CAG as ideal for its long-term goals regarding sustainable aviation. CAG’s approval of these trials was such that in February 2023, it signed a deal with Aurrigo for continued joint development and testing of the UGVs as well as the company’s simulation software AutoSim, which allows the scheduling and planning of specific airport operations to be tested. The trials so far have been carried out with safety operators present; the next stages are expected to be performed without them. Data and observations from these will be combined with the AutoSim 3D airport digital twin, to update and refine the operation of the Auto- Dolly and Auto-DollyTug for seamless crewed-uncrewed air hub tasks. Sanitation When considering particularly arduous or dirty jobs, cleaning work in various locations often springs to mind. For instance, industrial spaces such as warehouses and factories must constantly be kept spotless and free of any contaminants that could affect the products in them. Meanwhile, civic spaces such as car parks need to be kept clean for the sake of pedestrians and customers, not to mention safety from potential accidents and injuries. As well as cleaning floors, any debris also has to be removed, typically by ‘pre-sweeping’. Floors littered with wood scraps, leaves and so on can leave scratches or smears on the floors, making them hazardous for people or autonomous vehicles, be they logistics robots or parking valet UGVs such as the Stan from Stanley Robotics ( UST 44, June/July 2022). To that end, the R12 Rex CS (Cylindrical Scrubbing) UGV from LionsBot, which was unveiled in early 2023, is aimed at taking over these arduous jobs from labour-starved sectors, and shortening them by performing them simultaneously. For pre-sweeping, the UGV features two cylindrical Nylon carbide-coated brushes, each one 77 cm in diameter, one positioned behind the other, mounted on the undercarriage to sweep debris from its path of travel. Also, each front corner has a conventional spinning broom-type brush that brings its total sweeping width to 127 cm. Scrubbing is carried out by an onboard de-foaming and chemical dousing system whose chemicals are stored in 140 and 5 litre tanks respectively, and which are distributed behind the brushes after the April/May 2023 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Aurrigo’s Auto-Dolly (left) and Auto-DollyTug, working in a baggage facility at Changi Airport, Singapore (Courtesy of Aurrigo)