Pioneering a Robotic Airplane-Towing Vehicle
TaxiBot, a semi-autonomous truck, eliminates massive fuel waste and pollution from jets idling on runways.
Customer Success Story
The Objective
To address the growing problems of massive fuel waste from commercial airplanes taxiing and idling on runways, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) launched an ambitious project with Airbus and TLD group. They wanted to create a new type of vehicle that could tow aircraft on runways and eliminate the need to run jet engines until ready for takeoff. They also needed to address key functional issues that had thwarted similar efforts in the past, including how to safely and easily connect the towing vehicle to airplanes and how to provide full control of the towing vehicle to pilots.
“For me, our ability to get the project done so quickly was a dream come true. Today we can say with confidence we are at least five years ahead of our competitors.”
—Ran Braier, TaxiBot Project Director, IAI
How Wind River Helped
IAI chose VxWorks®, the Wind River® industry-leading real-time embedded operating system, to build the truck’s intelligent software system. Wind River Professional Services also provided its extensive engineering expertise to help accelerate DO-178B/ED-12B DAL B certification and address design and project challenges.
The Results
With the VxWorks embedded operating system and Wind River technical and project support, the TaxiBot team obtained the necessary industry safety certifications quickly, helping the team dramatically shorten the product’s development from prototype to fully approved vehicle, and putting TaxiBot at least five years ahead of competitors.
Resources
Case Study
Cleared for TakeOff: Wind River Helps Taxibot Pioneer Robotic Airplane-Towing Vehicle
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Press Release
Israel Aerospace Industries Delivers Revolutionary Airplane Towing Vehicle with Wind River Solution
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