A 1,400-kilogram battery-powered robotic vehicle called Roboxi has been inspecting taxiways and runway surfaces at Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) since mid-August, making the facility the first German airport to deploy the technology during live airside operations.

The four-month trial, scheduled to run through October, uses Roboxi to detect foreign object debris (FOD) and scan airfield infrastructure through artificial intelligence, onboard sensors and 3D laser scanning. BER says the vehicle can identify screws, stones, plastic waste and loose asphalt that could damage aircraft engines or tires, and physically collect the debris it finds.

What does Roboxi do on the airfield?

The vehicle performs two functions in a single pass. It sweeps for FOD, the loose hardware and material that BER estimates costs the aviation industry billions of euros in aircraft damage each year. It also maps runway and taxiway surfaces to flag pavement defects and identify faulty in-pavement lighting — inspection work that follow-me vehicle drivers and dedicated ground crews typically carry out between aircraft movements.

Roboxi measures 3.82 meters long and can travel at up to 60 km/h. During the BER trial it operates at Level 3 autonomy: an operator in the airport terminal monitors each run and can take remote control. BER has framed the deployment as a supplement to existing follow-me crews rather than a headcount play, and says the trial will assess whether the system can support apron processes, improve efficiency and surface hazards earlier than current inspection cycles allow.

Why does FOD matter to operators?

A single engine ingestion event can ground a narrowbody for days, with the cost landing on the operator through direct repairs, schedule disruption and spare-part provisioning. Airports and airlines have historically managed FOD risk through periodic walk-arounds and visual sweeps. A platform that runs on demand, collects what it finds and logs pavement conditions in parallel changes the economics of apron surveillance, independent of any labor savings.

The trial does not resolve the regulatory question of certifying autonomous ground equipment for safety-critical areas of a commercial aerodrome. BER has not disclosed the cost of the deployment or the supplier behind the Roboxi platform, and the evaluation will focus on how the system integrates with existing apron workflows rather than on stand-alone performance metrics, according to the operator.

What to watch

The October endpoint gives BER roughly six weeks of additional data before it decides whether to extend the trial, scale it across more of the airfield or end the program. If BER commits to a longer-term deployment, the results will set a reference point for Germany's other commercial hubs and, more broadly, for European operators weighing the case for autonomous airside vehicles against the cost of existing manual inspection routines.