Autonomous Transport Robots in Baggage Handling Systems

A study on the use of autonomous individual transport robots in baggage handling systems at medium-sized regional airports operating in a point-to-point network

Master thesis (2018)

Authors

A.A.E. Silven Mechanical Engineering

Contributors

R.R. Negenborn (supervisor 1)
Ron van Duin (supervisor 1)
Y. Pang (supervisor 1)
R.J.D. Verbeek (supervisor 1)
Faculty
Mechanical Engineering
Copyright: © 2018 Alisa Silven
More Info
expand_more

Published Date

06-04-2018

Language

English

Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Faculty

Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

This report describes a research performed to investigate in which way it is feasible to dynamically alter the floor plan and desired capacity of airport baggage handling systems by making use of autonomous individual transport robots. By researching the state of the art of both conventional baggage handling systems and transport robot systems, a new baggage handling solution called the Baggage Robot Concept is proposed. A simulation model of this Baggage Robot Concept is developed to evaluate the performance of this concept in the sorting process of a baggage handling system at medium-sized regional airports. The research identified that the most important design elements for the Baggage Robot Concept are the number of robots and the floor layout configuration. The Baggage Robot Concept turns out to be a feasible concept. An important design choice that is identified in the research is the trade-off between manoeuvre space of robots and the location of charging and storage positions. This study has been a first exploration in integrating autonomous robot systems in baggage handling systems, contributing to future proof and cost efficient operations.