Will testing on semi-autonomous snow-ploughing at Norway’s Fagernes Airport pave the way for the GSE of the future?
At a little air gateway in Leirin, Norway, an Abominable Snowman – a Yeti – has been used to control a small fleet of snow-ploughing vehicles each 20 metres long and more than 5 metres wide, to clear the runway at Fagernes Airport. Yeti Snow Technology is the brainchild of Swedish technology company Semcon and Norway-based snow plough and sweeper manufacturer Øveraasen, and testing of the system has been conducted in collaboration with Avinor, Norway’s state-owned limited company airport operator.
Fagernes Airport is 200 kilometres north of Oslo, and receives its fair share of snow. The snow ploughs used in the testing have enough capacity to clear an area of 357,500 square metres an hour, and the Yeti semi-autonomous system allows the vehicles to clear snow in formation, working in partnership together but guided by the one system.
“Autonomous snowploughs will allow airports all over the world to streamline their activities and reduce delays for their passengers. This is a good example of how autonomous vehicles can increase profitability and add value for people,” declares Markus Granlund, CEO at Semcon.
John Emil Halden, Semcon project manager, explains the workings of the Yeti: “We have designed a control system that sets up digital patterns for autonomous snow clearance at airports. The system can then download these patterns and monitor a number of vehicles that navigate using RTK GPS, an accurate form of position measurement, and communicate using 4G modems.”
All the vehicles in a snow-clearing fleet can be remotely operated, using a pre-programmed mission profile by means of the Yeti system. In such a case, the mission is controlled and monitored in real time by the Yeti Control System.
Digital decision-making
Halden talked to Airside about the development of the Yeti technology, and hopes for its future widespread utility. “We have been working on the system for 18 months,” he said in March. “Before that, we made some small-scale demonstration with RC [radio-controlled] trucks to demonstrate the principles of the technology.”
He continued: “The Yeti Control System is a system for planning and execution of snow removal operations at airports, creating digital plans where several vehicles work together to perform a snow-clearing mission.”
Elaborating, Halden explained: “A Yeti Mission is a collection of vehicles that jointly perform a specific task of snow removal. The vehicles may be of different types: ploughs, snow blowers, dumpers, command cars, and so on. They may also be a mix of autonomous vehicles, driver-assisted vehicles or manually operated vehicles. The system is also adapted to rules for safe operation at airports and airport ground traffic control authorisation.”
According to Semcon, an airport might progress along a phased development process of achieving fully autonomous snow-clearing capability in four steps: Planning and Training – Logging & Control – Driver Assistance – Full Autonomy.
The Yeti Control System itself offers a wide range of benefits, some or all of which can be enjoyed by its user. Halden lists its capabilities as such:
• Education and training of personnel; snow-clearing plans can be used to simulate operations on computers
• Supporting documentation of winter maintenance at airports
• Monitoring of snow removal operations
• Logging snow removal operations, both manual and autonomous
• By means of that logging, actual performance can be compared with planned performance, and digital plans and training can then be modified as required
• Providing guidance to the driver, helping in the operation of snow-clearing equipment
• Operating autonomous vehicles, or facilitating a combination of autonomous, driver-assisted and manually driven vehicles
Avinor has co-operated with the designers of Yeti on the testing of the system. In fact, says Halden: “Avinor launched the thought about autonomous snow removal operation back in 2010. Semcon has since then been in contact with Avinor, resulting in a small-scale demonstration in 2015 and an innovation project starting in November 2016.” The result of the first phase of this project was demonstrated in March this year at Leirin’s Fagernes Airport.
That trial saw the snow-clearing vehicle fleet guided by the Yeti Control System effectively put to the test, and showed that autonomous snow removal is indeed possible. “We expect to use the vehicles in a pilot installation, but commercial, fully autonomous snow removal will probably not happen until autonomous trucks are available from the big OEMs [original equipment manufacturers],” Halden suggests.
And, he confirms, “Yeti has no plans for developing autonomous vehicles – our focus is on the development of systems that use autonomous vehicles to perform an operational task.
“We will continue testing and development over the coming years, to make sure that the system is ready when autonomous vehicles are available,” he adds, concluding: “The planning and training module may be available in beta version this year, allowing airports to start the four-step journey [described above] to autonomy.”
