Trial of automated guided vehicles for cargo transportation launched at Barcelona Airport

ENVIROTAINER , the specialist in secure cold chain solutions for the shipment of pharmaceuticals, has reported a 24 percent increase in the volume of life-saving medicines shipped around the world in its temperaturecontrolled units. In 2021 the Envirotainer fleet moved ~600 million doses. In 2022 this grew to ~744 million doses (272,000 pallets).

The Envirotainer fleet covers more than 2,000 pharmaceutical trade lanes in over 100 countries and 300 airports. To enable the shipment of ever-increasing volumes of vaccines and treatments such as insulin to where they’re needed, the business will continue to invest and innovate to bring new products to the market.

With its Releye® range, which includes the biggest thermally-controlled container available, Envirotainer can ensure minimal or zero temperature deviations on the shipments and virtually zero product loss. Releye® also offers integrated live monitoring, which enables a unique insight into product condition, location and progress of the shipment. The company also supports cryogenic -70°C dry ice shipping for products such as clinical trials, vaccines, diagnostics biospecimen and many more with its CryoSure® product line.

“The increase in our shipments reflects the huge need for efficient, secure and sustainable cold-chain solutions for transporting sensitive pharmaceuticals. We will continue to increase capacity, developing our product range and accelerating the digitalisation of the coldchain industry,” Fredrik Linnér, Chief Business Development Officer at Envirotainer said.

A proof-of-concept trial for autonomous vehicles to move cargo between the warehouse and apron has commenced at Josep Tarradellas Barcelona – El Prat Airport as part of an innovation project between partners, Worldwide Flight Services (WFS) and Aena, the main airport operator, with 46 airports and two heliports in Spain.

The project is aligned with the first automated ground vehicle (AGV) guidelines being developed by IATA’s Ground Operations Automation and Digitization working group (GAD), which WFS has also been participating in.

WFS and Aena have been joined in the 10week trial by three other key partners, including FASEREK, MOVVO and SIMAI.

The first phase of the Barcelona trial involves cargo transport operations between the WFS cargo terminal and Terminal 1 using a ramp tractor equipped with AGV technology along a planned, point-to-point route of 2,300m. Aircraft manoeuvring areas will not be entered, or aircraft interacted with at this stage of the project.

“Through our test project, WFS will learn about the viability of automated vehicles in a busy airport tarmac environment to help us understand any limitations or challenges we will need to overcome before any future deployment of this technology at airports around the world,” Jordi Campderrós, PMO manager of WFS, said.

“Given that WFS handles cargo onboard more than 25,000 import and export flights a year at Barcelona, and more than 42,000 flights in Madrid, the future benefits of AGV technology are obvious in terms of productivity gains, safety, and sustainability, and this can ultimately be replicated at airports across the globe,” he added.