Efficient airport snow shoveling by applying autonomous multi-vehicle formations

An efficient snow cleaning system is essential for optimal airport traffic during the winter term. In this paper an autonomous approach based on formation driving of cooperative mobile vehicles is described. The method is composed of two independent elements. The route scheduling part designs a time optimal plan for all robots and the formation driving method on the other hand guides the ploughs in an appropriate way during the shoveling. The bridge connecting both modules is a path generator, which creates a feasible trajectory for the reference points of the formations. Optimality for the covering task is achieved by splitting and reuniting the robot groups depending on the varying size of the runways. The robustness of the algorithm is increased by the ability to adjust the formations shape reactively on obstacle detection. The proposed method was verified by simulations in the environment of the International Frankfurt Airport as well as by hardware experiments in a test field.