Patent ID: 8544792

Claim:
A towbarless airplane tug comprising: (a) a chassis mounted on a plurality of tug wheels, at least some of said tug wheels being steerable tug wheels and at least some of said tug wheels being drivable tug wheels; (b) an airplane wheel support turret assembly, rotatably mounted in connection with said chassis and operative to support at least one wheel of a nose landing gear of an airplane; (c) at least one rotation sensor connected to said wheel support turret assembly and operative to sense rotation of said wheel support turret assembly relative to said chassis, said rotation resulting at least from steering control induced movement of the nose landing gear caused by pilot-controlled ground steering of said airplane, and to generate an output indicating a direction of said pilot-controlled ground steering of said airplane; (d) at least one tug wheel driver unit operative to drive said drivable tug wheels; (e) at least one tug wheel steering mechanism operative to steer said steerable tug wheels thereby providing steering of said chassis; and (f) at least one tug controller operative to control operation of at least said tug wheel steering mechanism at least in response to said output of said rotation sensor, so as to cause steering said steerable tug wheels such that said chassis moves in the direction indicated in said output of said rotation sensor.