Autonomous baggage dolly takes off at Heathrow

Aurrigo was approached by International Airlines Group (IAG) to use its driverless expertise to develop the world’s first autonomous ‘dolly’, a common piece of ground-handling equipment normally used to move loose baggage and cargo to and from aircraft.

The trial started in March and has seen an existing dolly converted using LIDAR and GPS technology into a self-driving, electric vehicle that could increase the speed of loading and unloading luggage at airports throughout the world.

Working with British Airways (BA), the adapted dolly has been moving around Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport and is now also operating in the baggage handling area.

Designed, developed and manufactured at Aurrigo’s advanced engineering centre in Coventry, the firm said it will now embark on a global marketing programme to talk to the world’s airports and airlines about retrofitting existing dollies to make them fully autonomous and to explore production of a new range of super lightweight versions for extended operational performance.