ABB Robots in Airport Baggage Handling

Airport bags are still lifted by hand at both ends of the sorter. How ABB's Robotic Parcel Inductor and IRB 660 palletizer point to robotic baggage handling.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/22/20262 min read

Airline baggage has been hand work since the first passenger flights. A bag gets lifted onto a scale at check-in, onto a cart, into the hold, and out again at the other end. On a busy turnaround, a ramp crew can lift hundreds of bags, often bent over inside a cramped cargo hold.

Baggage handlers loading suitcases into an Airbus A330 at Sydney Airport

Baggage handlers loading a Jetstar A330 at Sydney Airport. Photo: Bidgee / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 AU)

Conveyors and automated sorters took over the middle of that journey. Barcode tags, and later RFID, let big airports route bags between belts without anyone reading a label. The two ends stayed manual. Someone still pulls each suitcase off the sorter and stacks it into a cart or container by hand.

Worker lifting suitcases off a conveyor in an airport baggage sorting hall

A worker pulling bags off the sorter at Prague airport. Photo: Krokodyl / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

That handoff looks a lot like parcel handling, where ABB already sells vision-guided robots. The ABB Robotic Parcel Inductor uses cameras and AI to pick mixed parcels off a pile and place them on a sorter one at a time. Suitcases are heavier and less regular, but the same see, grip and place approach applies.

ABB Robotic Parcel Inductor robot arm picking a box with a suction gripper

The ABB Robotic Parcel Inductor picking a parcel. Photo: ABB

Airports are paying more attention to this. At the FTE Global event in Dallas on September 8 to 10, Vancouver airport's baggage director was on a panel called "Scaling the Baggage Handling Revolution." British Airways has been rolling out Aurrigo's self-driving Auto-DollyTugs at Gatwick to move bags across the apron.

Baggage carts and handlers beside aircraft on an airport apron

Baggage carts and handlers on the apron at Manchester Airport. Photo: Richard Humphrey / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

For the heavy stacking, ABB's IRB 660 palletizing robot reaches 3.15 meters and already builds stacks of mixed cases in factories, with cells planned in RobotStudio before installation. A similar arm with a suitable gripper could stack bags into a container while a person deals with odd items like strollers and golf clubs.

ABB IRB 660 robot stacking cases onto a pallet

An ABB IRB 660 stacking cases onto a pallet. Photo: ABB

Longer term, I expect a checked bag to be touched by a person only when something goes wrong. The same kind of vision-guided picking, which ABB also uses in its Robotic Item Picker, is what home delivery robots and household helpers will need to carry groceries and bags to the door.

ABB Robotic Item Picker arm with suction gripper

ABB's Robotic Item Picker, which uses vision to pick mixed items. Photo: ABB

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