A contract was scheduled to be signed Thursday in Stillwater paving the way for research and development that could lead to a working prototype of an automated system for handling landed aircraft.
The contract is between the New Product Development Center at Oklahoma State University and Airplane Transporting Systems.
The ATS is what the University calls an “innovative system designed to transport aircraft from the runway via the taxiway to the airport gates and back to the runway.”
The announcement indicated that upon landing a pilot taxis the aircraft to the taxiway where the ATS system is installed and ready for use. The nose wheel of the aircraft is driven into the ATS pull car, secured and finally the plane engines are shut down saving fuel and emissions.
The ATS system uses special channels with a rail system built beneath the taxiway and powered by electrical motors in the channels to transport aircraft. The pull car moves each aircraft along the channel to the appropriate gate.
When the plane is ready for departure, the ATS pull car pushes the aircraft away from the game and pulls it along the taxiway and to the runway where the pilot can start the engines and drive from the pull car.
The OSU New Product Development Center indicated the entire ATS is fully automatic and integrated into the ground control system and run by the ground control tower personnel. The system theoretically can create an estimated increase in airport capacity by 30 percent.
