TaxiBot towing vehicle to lessen carbon emissions of aircrafts

Ricardo has successfully engineered a pilot-controlled towing vehicle, known as TaxiBot, for Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). The robotic vehicle is capable of operating both narrow and wide bodied commercial jets. It requires no modification to the airplane or runway, and needs only slight adjustments to the airport’s infrastructure.

According to Airbus and IAI, taxiing at the air terminal’s runway and gate is a main source of carbon gas emissions. But with the use of TaxiBot, aircrafts no longer need to use their main engines for slow speed ground travels, resulting to reduced amounts of air and noise pollutions, and wasted fuel.

Based on aviation reports, taxiing aircrafts is forecasted to cost around $7 billion by 2012 and it emits approximately 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. Dave Shemmans, CEO of Ricardo, assured that TaxiBot could help reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the aviation industry and noise pollution in the airport vicinity.

Ricardo has been working with IAI for the previous 15 months to develop the robotic towing vehicle. The first TaxiBot is based on a Krauss Maffei PTS-1 aircraft tractor owned by Lufthansa LEOS. The demonstrator vehicle weighs 52 tonnes and is fueled by two 500hp V8 diesel engines. At the moment, the developed TaxiBot model is capable of towing Airbus A340 and Boeing 747 jets.

Following the signing of agreement between Airbus and IAI, the demonstrator TaxiBot will be shipped by February next year to Toulouse Airport, where the towing vehicle will be further tested with an A340-600 plane weighing about 350 tonnes.