Software Innovation for Smart Autonomous Airside: T-Hive’s Involvement in BrightSky
T-Hive’s Involvement in BrightSky
T-Hive and Vanderlande are working together to develop an autonomous outdoor baggage handling system to be used at the airside of Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. For this project, we are using T-Hive’s T-Suite software package to design, control, and monitor the autonomous vehicle system.
With the end goal of having autonomous airport tuggers delivering baggage to and from aircraft at the Schiphol Airport, we started by designing the system and running simulations of all airport apron operation scenarios with the autonomous vehicles, before deploying the system in real life.
Our progress in 2024
Realistic Emulation
In order to have a better understanding of the operation, we use T-Suite to emulate the outdoor operation with the autonomous vehicle.
Since our last emulation demo, much progress has been made in the T-Suite to allow for a more realistic emulation. We are now able to build the airport apron layout in the Digital Twin and import it into Order Manager and T-FMS. The truck trailers are also now emulated (although not yet shown in the visualisation.)
How does the emulation work?
First, we use Digital Twin to generate the airport layout. With the smart features of the Digital Twin, we can easily design the system layout based on the real environment and required operational conditions. When satisfied, we export the layout into the runtime stack part of T-Suite. (Later on, if we need to modify the layout, we can also go back to the Digital Twin and easily do so.)
With the layout in hand, the Fleet Management System receives orders from Order Manager and instructs the vehicle on where to go and which tasks to perform. For this emulation, we use an emulated vehicle created by Vanderlande’s CARE (CApacity Realistic Emulation) that very closely mimics the characteristics of real vehicles. The emulation is visualized through FleetTracker, our 3D visualization tool.
The diagram below describes the emulation stack as it currently stands. T-Hive develops the components in yellow, and those are what you will see in this demonstration.
At the top of the stack is Order Manager, which is the order management system that not only processes orders from external sources but also manages the site location configuration and the process workflow for every use case. During the demo, we will use the “CallMeScreen” with a simple UI button to mimic order creation by airport operators.
Once the order is processed and the vehicle is instructed to drive, T-FMS will be working as part of the stack. With the latest development, T-FMS now supports vehicles with trailers. That means this emulation will be more realistic with all the trailer behaviours taken into account.
T-FMS has the information of the vehicles registered on-site. For apron operations, there will be many manual operations that the autonomous vehicle has to “wait” for; for example, the manual loading and unloading of baggage containers (ULD). Our current T-FMS supports multiple “wait” actions – a new feature that allows autonomous vehicles to work smoothly in a mixed system that includes human operators.
As for the vehicle, we have implemented the Simai TE152 truck in the “CARE” emulator. The emulated vehicle has been created to behave as close to the real vehicle as possible. The goal is to be able to run the real vehicle with the same software setting by easily swapping the emulator out for the real vehicle.
Last but not least, T-Hive’s visualisation tool “Live” (powered by our FleetTracker software) allows you to see the 3D visualisation of the emulated system. With this tool, we can import customised 3D objects in .gltf format. The result is a 3D “animation” that shows you exactly how the real vehicles will run in real operations at Schiphol Airside.
Note: we are still working on the visualisation of trailers, so in the video you will only see the tugger running without trailers, but you can be sure that the trailers are emulated and are there, just not visible to the naked eye!
In this demo video, we demonstrate the function of T-Suite and create orders just like in real operations.
From screen to reality: small-scale physical demo
Seeing is believing, and we believe seeing physical things creates a better understanding than just digital models. Between the emulation and real airport tuggers, we have used the T-Suite and a modified small Kollmorgen vehicle to create a small-scale physical demo to show how the autonomous vehicle will work with humans in real operations.
This demo uses the same software suite that we use in the emulation, and will use in the real operation, but connecting it to a small forklift disguised as a miniature airport towing truck, fully equipped with baggage ULD trailer. From our test site at Toyota Material Handling head office in the Netherlands, you will get a feel for how the ULD replenishment use case would look at the Schiphol platform.
A lot of new developments with cutting-edge technologies going on behind this project. We are excited to see these autonomous airport towing trucks driving in Schiphol in the near future!
