Abstract: An autonomous vehicle includes a chassis for housing an aircraft ground contacting structure (GCS) and one or more GCS coupling and lifting mechanisms, GCS securing mechanisms, drivetrain, batteries and a sensor stack for performing autonomous navigation. Further, the vehicle incorporates multiple sensors, such as high-resolution machine vision cameras, GPS modules, Lidars, ultrasonic range sensors, and radars. The sensors deliver spatial perception capabilities to the vehicle and feed relevant data to onboard computing units to achieve location-based navigation, precision alignment with aircraft, obstacle detection and collision avoidance capabilities. A series of batteries deliver power to all components, including but not limited to, motors, electromechanical units, onboard computers, sensors and any other component requiring electrical input. External ports allow the vehicle to recharge batteries after each utilization cycle without replacement.

Abstract: Systems and methods for transferring aircraft within a landing area of an aerial transport are provided. A system includes a plurality of robotic devices configured to move aircraft within the landing area. The system obtains facility data to dynamically determine accessible and prohibited areas of the landing area. The system determines a robotic device to transfer an aircraft based on map data representing the prohibited/accessible areas of the landing area and robotic data representing attributes of each robotic device. The system determines a number of routes for the selected robotic device to transfer the aircraft within the landing area while avoiding prohibited areas of the landing area. The system generates command instructions for the selected robotic device and provides the command instructions to the selected robotic device to travel in accordance with the number of routes.

Abstract: Systems and methods for communicating aircraft sensory cues are provided. A method can include obtaining aerial vehicle data and facility data for an aerial portion of a multi-modal transportation service. The method can include determining a plurality of sensory cues indicative of information for the aerial portion of the transportation service such as a safe path across a landing pad of the facility, a seating assignment for a passenger, etc. The method can include communicating sensory data indicative of the plurality of sensory cues to at least one of a facility computing system associated with the facility or an aerial computing system associated with the at least one aerial vehicle. The facility computing system and/or aerial computing system can output the sensory cue(s) to at least one passenger or operator of the aerial portion of the multi-modal transportation service in, for example, the facility's landing area.