DENVER, Nov. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- United Airlines has cut aircraft turnaround time with Dewbridge Airport Systems' new dual-end passenger boarding bridge, the AutoDocker(TM) bridge, a movable walkway connecting a parked aircraft to an airport terminal building. The new bridge is robotic. It automatically senses doors with computer vision and moves into a docking position. By connecting to both the front and rear doors of an aircraft, it halves boarding and deplane time.
Dewbridge selected Energid Technologies' advanced machine vision and 3D object recognition technology to perform aircraft door detection. Energid's all-weather vision software works with different paint patterns in different lighting conditions. "This system finds aircraft doors day and night, in rain, fog, and snow," said David Askey, Energid Technologies' architect of the door-detection vision system.
Based on technology Energid developed for NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense, the advanced vision system requires no modification of the aircraft. It identifies doors on different aircraft types using 3D algorithms that recognize door shape and appearance. The vision system handles novel aircraft paint patterns and accommodates changes to an airlines' paint pattern with no need for updating or retraining the algorithms.
This week, United began loading passengers at its fourth fielded AutoDocker bridge at Denver International Airport. The four new robotic bridges serve both mainline United and Ted aircraft and give United an advantage in customer convenience by decreasing boarding time.
Because the docking is fully automatic, with no human intervention required, United employees can give more attention to customers, rather than spend time on the docking process. Shorter load and deplane times will also let United increase aircraft throughput at each gate.
"Our company is proud to have played a role in developing these robotic bridges -- it is the way of the future, here today," said James English, Chief Technical Officer at Energid Technologies.
About Dewbridge Airport Systems
Dewbridge Airport Systems, a division of Dew Industries, designs and manufactures a range of passenger boarding bridges for regional, narrow-body, and wide-body aircraft. The new AutoDocker(TM) state-of-the-art fully automatic bridges are compatible with narrow-body aircraft such as the A320, B757, B737, and Embraer 190.
About Energid Technologies
Actin, Selectin, and the Energid logo are trademarks of Energid Technologies Corporation. AutoDocker is a trademark of Dewbridge Airport Systems.
Energid Technologies
