Aircraft Towing Robot: TaxiBot, eTugs and ABB

An airliner at a terminal gate is usually pushed back by a tug, because reversing on its own engines, a powerback, brings noise, jet blast and flying debris to the stand. An aircraft towing robot is the next step for those tugs: a machine that can move an aircraft with less help from a driver and the wing walkers beside it. This post covers towbars, shear pins and towbarless tugs, the pilot-controlled TaxiBot that towed its first Lufthansa flight in 2014, the remote-controlled electric tugs and the autonomy debate of 2026, ABB's chargers and mobile robots, and what still stands in the way.

A Goldhofer pushback tractor with a United Airlines plane at San Francisco International Airport, 2014. Photo: Raimond Spekking / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

How ground crews moved aircraft with towbars and tugs

A pushback tug moves the aircraft by its nose landing gear. One way to connect the two is a towbar, which has a shear pin that breaks if the bar is overstressed, so the tug cannot mishandle the aircraft. The tug driver can talk to the cockpit through a headset plugged in near the nose gear. Jay Mukhtar, chief executive of the tug maker TowFLEXX, describes a typical tow crew as three people: one driving the tug and two spotting from the wingtips. Navies used tugs on carrier decks too, and a 1955 Vickers tug tractor that served on the aircraft carrier Ark Royal still survives.

A 1955 Vickers tug tractor that served on the Royal Navy aircraft carrier Ark Royal. Photo: Andrew Bone / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Towbarless tugs do away with the bar. They scoop up the nose landing gear and lift it off the ground. Electric tugs are low-emission, which lets them work inside a closed hangar. TowFLEXX, based in New Castle, Delaware, builds remote-controlled electric tugs for ramps and hangars, including the TF5, a towbarless tug with adjustable adapters for different nosewheel sizes. That range matters, because the aircraft a single operator handles can run from a Cessna 172 to a Gulfstream G550.

A Kalmar Motor TBL 180 towbarless tug at Hannover Airport, 2023. Photo: MarcelX42 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Israel Aerospace Industries tried a different approach. Its Lahav Division developed TaxiBot, a semi-robotic, towbarless tractor that tows an aircraft between the gate and the takeoff area while the pilot controls it from the cockpit with the normal pilot controls. Certification tests were completed in July 2014 and airport towing approval followed that November. On 25 November 2014 Lufthansa flight LH140 from Frankfurt to Nuremberg became the first commercial flight towed this way, and Lufthansa began regular operations at Frankfurt in February 2015. In October 2019 Air India became the first airline to use TaxiBot regularly, on a Delhi to Mumbai flight.

A Lufthansa pushback tractor in Germany, 2014, the year Lufthansa flew the first commercial flight towed by TaxiBot. Photo: Alf van Beem / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Remote control and autonomy on the apron in 2026

On 23 October 2026 AeroXplorer asked why aircraft towing may be one of the last parts of ground handling to become autonomous. Mukhtar expects autonomy to arrive first in simpler jobs such as baggage carts and airfield maintenance, because "aircraft aren't standardized the way baggage carts are." Oversteering a nose landing gear beyond its limits can cause thousands of dollars in damage, and he argues that full autonomy in towing is held back by hardware as well as software. TowFLEXX's optional lidar can slow or stop a tug when it detects an obstruction, which he describes as a safety layer that does not replace the operator.

A Mototok Spacer 8600 NG tug pushing back an Embraer E-Jet, 2024. Photo: Cashin-Mot / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Trade shows point the same way. At GSE Expo Europe in Lisbon in September, more than 170 suppliers exhibited, nearly every stand had a battery-powered version of its equipment, from ambulifts to tugs, and an Autonomous Zone hosted demonstrations and talks on unmanned equipment, aircraft pushback and digital twins. Autonomous towing there mostly meant baggage and cargo, such as TLD Robotics' work with EasyMile and TractEasy. The case for electric aircraft towing is getting stronger: an ICCT working paper published on 14 October 2026 found that gate-to-runway towing with a battery-electric tug could cut landing and takeoff CO2 emissions by 29 percent in its California analysis, though it faces operational and infrastructure hurdles.

An ANA electric ground support vehicle charging at an ABB fast charger at Tokyo Haneda airport. Photo: ABB

ABB does not build aircraft tugs, and we found no ABB robot towing aircraft. The closest thing it sells is a tug for factories. After buying ASTI Mobile Robotics in 2021, ABB launched the Flexley Tug and Flexley Mover, which cover towing and trolley transport up to 2,000 kg and lifting racks and pallets of 1,500 kg. Its Visual SLAM robots, now a family of forklifts, tugs and movers, map and navigate without markers or reflectors and position themselves to within about 10 mm, and ABB says its AMR Studio software shortens commissioning by up to 20 percent.

An ABB Flexley Tug moving a car body on a trolley in a factory. Photo: ABB

Where aircraft towing robots go next

Over the next few years, assistance is likely to come before full autonomy. TowFLEXX offers camera guidance that follows marked routes while the operator stays in control, and Mukhtar says remote operation could turn a three-person tow crew into three moving sets of eyes, if manuals, procedures and airport rules allow it. Bigger aircraft are part of the picture: TaxiBot's wide-body version, built for types such as the A380 and 747, went through certification testing from 2016 to 2018. For travellers and people living near airports, the gain from electric towing is less fuel burned on the ground.

A towbarless tug holding the nose gear of an Airbus A380, 2009. Photo: Michael Pereckas / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Charging is where ABB already works airside. In December 2023 ANA installed ABB Terra CE 54 CJG fast chargers for its electric ground support vehicles at Tokyo Haneda, the first time the airline put fast chargers in the restricted area of an airport, and the charger supports the CHAdeMO, AC and CCS 2 standards. As more tugs run on batteries, plugging them in automatically is one job robots could take on, as a possibility. ABB's eMine Robot Automated Connection Device already charges electric mining trucks without human intervention, and programs for robot cells like that are usually built first in RobotStudio.

ABB's eMine Robot Automated Connection Device, a robot arm that plugs in electric mining trucks, at MINExpo 2024. Photo: ABB

Safety and rules are the hardest open problems. Aircraft vary far more than baggage carts, nose gear has limits a tug must never exceed, and any remote or automated operation still has to fit aircraft manuals, procedures and airport rules. Mukhtar adds that traffic density, more than airport size, decides how hard the job is. ABB's mobile robots are factory machines for loads up to 2,000 kg, a long way from an airliner, but mapping, precise positioning and safe speed are the same problems on an apron. Baggage is where airside autonomy is furthest along, as our post on airport baggage handling shows.

The ABB Flexley Mover P604, which navigates with 3D Visual SLAM. Photo: ABB

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