Thursday, January 29, 2009

Large object guidance – a business opportunity?

At the end of a long flight there are few things more frustrating than being told you can’t disembark the aircraft because there’s no one available to drive the airbridge (or jetway, as I think they are sometimes called.)

If we can guide industrial robots with machine vision, how difficult can it be to drive those large mobile exit ramps the same way? Stereo vision could locate the aircraft in 3 dimensions, and fiducial markings on the aircraft door would guide the airbridge to the correct docking position. Yes, there are some environmental challenges, but add up how much jet fuel is wasted waiting for ground personnel to show up at a gate and I think you’ll see a financial case could be made for automation.

Any entrepreneurs out there interested in forming a partnership to explore this?

1 comment:

Kesava Prasad said...

I am entrepreneur interested to look at this opportunity. We are a startup working in the area of machine vision.