Transportation
❯
Autonomous driving
❯Autonomous apron truck
Autonomous apron truck
For:
Transporter
Scope:
Automated transportation of luggage (carts) to requested destinations on an airport apron while following local traffic rules and resolving unplanned
conflicts.
Goal:
Improve Operation Efficiency
Government
Defense & Military - Autonomous Vehicle
For:
Military Operatives.
Scope:
Using computer vision to implement perimeter safety for Autonomous Vehicles.
Goal:
Improved Product Development / R&D
AI components for vehicle platooning on public roads
Scope:
Trains of vehicles that drive very close to each other at nearly equal speed
(platoons) on public roads, in particular platooning trucks on motorways.
Goal:
Improve Operation Efficiency
Autonomous trains (Unattended train operation (UTO))
Scope:
Freight and passenger trains operate autonomously, excluding any crew
presence on board, but with remote operator attention involved.
Goal:
Improve Operation Efficiency
Self-driving aircraft towing vehicle
Scope:
Self-Driving towing vehicle for aircrafts, operating on an airfield autonomously.
Goal:
Improve Operation Efficiency
Autonomous apron truck
For:
TransporterGoal:
Improve Operation EfficiencyProblem addressed
Automate transport to increase reliability, precision, efficiency and safety.
Scope of use case
Automated transportation of luggage (carts) to requested destinations on an airport apron while following local traffic rules and resolving unplanned
conflicts.
Description
While the number of airplanes visiting German airports has
steadily increased over the last decades and recently reached
a new all-time high the logistics to enable smooth processing
has also increased correspondingly in complexity.
To further manage an even higher number of airplanes a fully
automated luggage truck has been developed.
The truck receives tasks from a machine or human
coordinator and automatically execute these. For specific
tasks, such as loading and unloading or maintenance, further
interaction with human workers is needed. Therefore, the
truck is able to communicate its status and intents to
surrounding workers.
While operating on the apron the truck always obeys local
traffic rules. The only occasion on which these rules are
violated is if an accident is thereby avoided. Human safety is
always the trucks first priority.
For achieving all these functions an AI system consisting of
multiple individual elements, which are all expected to
operate collaboratively has been designed. The three main
modules are a perception module, a behaviour generator and
an execution module.
The truck perceives its environment by its perception
module, which consists of multiple submodules, such as
object detection, recognition, tracking and data fusion blocks
for multiple sensor types. The perceived information and the
respective uncertainties are further processed to localize, re-
project and detect each objects intent in the trucks
coordinate system.
The perception unit outputs a context model that the
behaviour generator receives to decide on what actions to
take next. This behaviour generator consists of a deep
reinforcement learning agent and is supervised by a
symbolic rule checker to ensure that the agent operates fault
free. If a taken action violates a rule, either the agent is
expected to determine a new action or, in safety critical
situations, the rule checker determines a safe action by
symbolic reasoning.
The execution module executes the behaviour determined by
the behaviour generator. It consists of motion planning,
control and communication submodules that execute the
intended task while reporting back to the behaviour
generator, which react to unexpected situations.
Additionally, the trucks status and intents are constantly
reported over communication systems to its surroundings to
enable uncomplicated interaction with the truck.
Live Video
AI: Perceive
Computer Vision
AI: Understand