Driverless Vehicles Prepare for Takeoff at Tokyo Airport

March 12, 2018

Japan's high-tech industry sees airports as having great potential for improvement using the latest robotics and artificial intelligence technologies.

Source Nikkei Asian Review

TOKYO -- On a recent February day, a mini bus made by Hino Motors cautiously made its way along a public road near Tokyo's Haneda Airport at a speed of about 10kph. There were no passengers, and more surprisingly, no driver either.

The exercise was a trial run of a self-driving bus being carried out by the Japanese tech giant SoftBank Group and All Nippon Airways, with the eventual aim of commercializing driverless transport at airports from around 2020.

Japan's high-tech industry sees airports as having great potential for improvement using the latest robotics and artificial intelligence technologies. Some of the functions ripe for automation include cleaning and delivery services, which could be handled by robots, and information desk services, which could be done with AI.