december2022january2023 - 20

Cover Story
When Eugenio
Donati and
Raymond Wang
founded their
start-up technology
company in 2020,
their objective was
to bring autonomy
to the ground
support equipment
market and apply
it to
real-world uses.
" We wanted this to be tested in live
operations from the beginning, not
a mock turnaround - an actual dayto-day
cargo operation, " Donati says.
" That's the only way to actually stress
test the system. "
AeroVect is pushing forward with
that mission, having already announced
partnerships with GAT Airline Ground
Support and dnata, and piloting
their self-driving GSE solution with
Delta Air Lines.
" These guys are very motivated, very
smart, " says Lourens van Aswegen,
director of GSE at Delta Air Lines. " So,
we had faith in starting something with
them and seeing if the technology is
ready for prime time. "
Throughout 2022, AeroVect has
announced a series of partnerships to
pilot and deploy autonomous GSE across
multiple airports both in the United
States and abroad. To test its technology
in real-world scenarios, baggage
and cargo tractors have been equipped
with the self-driving AeroVect Driver to
Raymond Wang, left, and Eugenio Donati, right, founded AeroVect in 2020
and have worked since then to bring autonomous GSE to airports.
carry out live tasks in the busy airport
environment.
" AeroVect's autonomous GSE technology
is not only useful and practical,
but importantly a big step forward that
enhances ramp safety, " said GAT CEO
Mike Hough, when AeroVect announced
its first of three partnerships earlier this
year. " GAT Airline Ground Support has
always been a first mover in the ground
support industry, and we continue to
invest in new frontier technologies that
enable us to offer the safest, most efficient,
and most reliable ground support
service to our airline partners across
major airports in the United States. "
In a recent pilot of its technology, a
vehicle powered by the AeroVect Driver
system was required to navigate six
aircraft crossings, 12 intersections, one
underground tunnel and two checkpoint
gates - requiring the technology to
negotiate many decision-making areas.
" The biggest question marks for folks
when it comes to autonomous driving is
20 || Ground Support Worldwide || December 2022/January 2023
the interaction with the airplanes, " van
Aswegen says. " It's a very data-heavy
approach that takes in a lot of pieces
of information to try and enhance that
decision making. But when it gets to
waiting for an airplane to cross a taxiway
or determining the right time to
cross the taxiway after the aircraft is
no longer blocking the path to avoid the
jet blast, those are things that are tough
even for people to figure out. "
From a technical standpoint, an evaluation
of the technology can determine
if the judgement of the system is equivalent
or better to a human's judgement
in critical situations, such as giving way
to airplanes at aircraft crossings. Then
from a practical standpoint, a pilot program
aims to determine if the autonomy
is as safe or better than a human
driver and as efficient or more efficient
as a person carrying out the task.
The AeroVect Driver's array of lidar
sensors and cameras work in tandem
with GPS technology to operate the
AEROVECT
december2022january2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of december2022january2023
