IAI expands TaxiBot to Schiphol and Bangalore, as airports take advantage of lull to test system for towing aircraft.
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) with its partners TLD and SAS is expanding its semi robotic TaxiBot for automated aircraft taxiing to additional airports: Schiphol in Amsterdam and Bangalore Airport in India.
With the COVID-19 crisis bringing the operations in airports to a near-halt, airports are using their time and space for testing various developments and ways to streamline their operations.
Schiphol recently started a pilot of aircraft taxiing with the TaxiBot (taxiboting) to streamline the process. Bangalore airport is also testing the system
The TaxiBot, which was developed by IAI’s aviation group and TLD, is a semi-robotic vehicle, which connects to the aircraft and is controlled by the pilot.
It is used to taxi the aircraft (taxiboting) from the airport’s gate bridge to the runway and back without turning on the airplane’s Jet engines.
The taxiboting process saves 85% of the fuel burned during taxying and similar savings in greenhouse gas emissions. Additional benefits of taxiboting include 60% noise reduction and 50%-reduction of damage caused by foreign objects sucked into the engines during taxiing.
The TaxiBot streamlines aircraft’s entry and exit from the terminal area saving around 4 minutes per departure as measured during the routine daily operation at Delhi airport.
