The management of Pulkovo Airport has appealed to the Ministry of Transport with a proposal to approve a project for the introduction of unmanned transport on the territory of the airport. According to the General Director of the airport, Leonid Sergeev, the first stage of the project is to automate the process of serving passenger boarding bridges.
In the future, the possibility of using unmanned devices for snow removal and robotic vacuum cleaners with anti-icing fluid is being considered. The next step will be the introduction of unmanned baggage tractors, as well as the use of unmanned vehicles for patrolling airfields and delivering passengers.
Pulkovo Airport intends to fully automate these processes within three years. Airport specialists have studied the experience of using unmanned technologies in the airports of Oman and China.
It is expected that such "unmanned assistance" on the scale of the entire airport industry will save up to 70 billion rubles per year. Other proposals include involving airport employees in performing simple tasks on the apron.
St. Petersburg became the first city in Russia where unmanned robotic platforms began to be used at the airport to speed up work. The newest Russian autonomous Piranha rovers using domestic software were the first to be used in the St. Petersburg air harbor. Rovers are capable of towing cargo weighing up to 500 kg or carrying up to 300 kg on themselves, and working around the clock, interrupted only for recharging every eight hours.
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