Latest Generation Aircraft Tow Tractor uses Janz emVIEW Systems

For over 60 years, “TREPEL“ has been an indispensable name at airports all over the world. Today, their vehicles are use in over 110 countries, and prove their quality under the hardest conditions.

TREPEL has become a synonym for freight and passanger handling at highest level.

TREPEL has introduced the CHALLENGER Airport Loader as its latest product line. The task of theses loaders includes the normal push-back of aircraft, as well as towing aircraft to new positions, or for maintenance. All commercial aircraft and most military aircrafts can be handled - up to a fully loaded Airbus A380.

The product line includes various models for meeting the needs of various situations. CHALLENGER 160 is the smallest aircraft tractor for handling aircraft such as a Boeing B767. CHALLENGER 430 can handle up to a fully loaded Boeing B777. The flagship product is CHALLENGER 700, which, with its weight of 40 tons without ballast and up to 70 tons ballasted, is setting new limits, handling aircraft up to 600 tons.

With the design of the CHALLENGER fleet, TREPEL is taking a new direction with the design of the cabin and the operating instruments. Instead of the usual individual instruments on the dashboard, a small Panel PC from Janz Tec AG has been used.

The use of an intelligent system here means that more functions can be handled than with fixed instruments. Two operating conditions apply:

Normal operating – here the various tractor displays are available to assist the driver during operation of the vehicle:

• Engine and transmission status

• Active steering display

• Current wheelbase - this is especially important since all axles are steerable

• Load control

• And, of course, the standard instruments found in a normal truck.

Service – the emVIEW unit serves as an aid forr maintenance, so no external device is needed to control data for:

• Display of fault memory

• Display of operating hours and service intervals

• Support for vehicle test measurements

• Support for select alternate languages

• I/O diagnostics

• Monitoring of enginge and transmission data

• …

At the beginning of the project, an emVIEW-6T/A400, a small compact ARM based Panel PC with a 6.5“ display was selected. Importand factors in selecting these systems were the full CAN support and the use of Soft-SPS CoDeSys V2 to IEC 61131-3 control software. The development was made with a standard Janz Tec product.

The decision to use Janz Tec for the series launch was based on several reasons - significantly the fast, flexible response to additional requests from TREPEL. This decision insured that a system could be delivered that could cope with wide temperature ranges. Since this 9 Watt system produces little lost heat, it guarantees that operation even in adverse environmental conditions is possible without fan cooling.

A second and very important factor was the outside appearance of the system. The customer´s request to have a customized display front was realized very quickly. Since the tractors are equipped with very large windows, and thus have a lot of ambient light in the cabins, a normal display is often difficult to read. In collaboration with TREPEL, Janz Tec has developed a system with a display which is suitable for sunny conditions, and implemented it as a standard product.

So all over the world, tractors from TREPEL are handling aircraft with the help of the computer technology from Janz Tec AG.