Airbus fits electric truck with airliner cockpit to study safer taxiing

Airbus is showing off an unusual vehicle - a truck fitted with basic A350 airliner controls - that it hopes can demonstrate how automated taxiing will make airports safer as concern grows over a spate of jetliners colliding on the ground. The converted electric truck at VivaTech, Europe's biggest technology event, can be driven normally, or the aircraft systems can be given control. Sensors keep track of warning lines and obstacles as onboard computers guide the vehicle to a specific location, accelerating and braking as needed. "These use cases are much more critical and complicated compared to those of the car industry," said Matthieu Gallas, head of automation research at Airbus UpNext,the planemaker's innovation lab. "Copying and pasting technology already available on the market won't work." Airbus is at pains to avoid linking the research to specific accidents, but comparisons with January's fiery Tokyo collision between a landing A350 and a coast guard plane that appeared to have strayed onto the runway are inevitable. Airbus declined comment on the accident, which is being investigated. A separate investigation was launched last month after the wingtip of an empty Virgin Atlantic jet collided with a stationary British Airways jet. In February, U.S. regulators said they would look into a collision between two JetBlue planes at Boston Logan. Airbus hopes the vehicle crawling through a side alley of the Paris exhibition centre hosting the tech billionaires and startups of VivaTech shows how automation can help safely squeeze $100-million-plus jets through increasingly congested airports.<br/>