State of the Art of Electric Taxiing Systems

The aviation industry represents an ever-expanding economy and the aircraft market forecast reveals an optimistic growth for the coming decades. New requirements and guidelines call for a more efficient, reliable, and environment friendly aircraft operations during both airborne and ground phases. Considering on-ground operations, the electric taxiing is one of the suggested solutions for reducing the emissions and the acoustic noise in the airport, and for lowering the fuel consumption and the flight costs. This paper provides an overview of the most important existing electric taxiing systems and also presents the basic concepts related to it. Finally, detailed comparison of the different systems is given with recommendations for the future research.