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Location:
London
industry:
Airport industry
Application:
Drive technology for the modernization of the baggage handling system
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With an investment program of approximately 1 billion pounds, London’s Gatwick Airport expanded its baggage handling systems. Due to rising passenger numbers, Gatwick sought to increase the capacity of its baggage handling systems to over 24 million passengers per year (it now handles more than 30 million passengers annually). For Gatwick Airport, however, the reliability of the baggage handling systems was not the only priority.
The focus was also on energy savings, reducing the number of variants, and lowering installation and commissioning costs. This was achieved through the use of our mechatronic drive system MOVIGEAR®.
The highly efficient MOVIGEAR® consists of a motor, gear unit, and electronics integrated into a very compact mechatronic unit. Thanks to its exceptional overload behavior, it is ideally suited to the specific requirements of baggage handling systems in the airport industry, thereby enabling a reduction in the number of variants used, a significant decrease in the power rating, and energy savings. The advantages of MOVIGEAR® lie primarily in the motor’s extremely high IE4 efficiency rating (Super Premium Efficiency), making it an energy-saving and thus sustainable drive solution. London Gatwick Airport also recognized these advantages and therefore selected SEW-EURODRIVE in July 2010 as an innovative drive technology manufacturer to oversee the redesign of the North and South Terminals.
Currently, more than 1,500 drives ensure the smooth and reliable operating principle of the system. However, Gatwick Airport has already planned to increase the number of our MOVIGEAR® drives by adding more units, bringing the total to over 2,000. This is due to the following features and benefits of MOVIGEAR®:
Customer Requirement
For the modernization of its baggage handling system, London Gatwick Airport prioritized the installation of reliable and high-performance drives. The most important criteria were therefore absolute reliability, energy efficiency, and a reduction in the number of variants.
Our Solution
Thanks to our highly efficient mechatronic drive technology with MOVIGEAR®, London Gatwick Airport was able to far exceed its objective: with energy savings of 30–50%, MOVIGEAR® optimally meets these criteria and is already in use at other airports worldwide.
For our new baggage handling systems at Gatwick Airport, it was important to install reliable and high-performance drives. Our most important criteria were therefore absolute reliability and energy efficiency in order to implement Gatwick’s sustainable environmental goals—summarized under the “Decade of Change” initiative—such as reducing carbon emissions.Alex Adams, Lead Engineer – Baggage Systems, Gatwick AirportSecondary criteria included, among others:
- Reducing the number of drive types
- Reducing the number of potential sources of failure, e.g., mechanical brakes, fans
- Using simple control systemsOur market research showed that the MOVIGEAR® drive series from SEW-EURODRIVE best met our criteria. We subsequently installed 1,200 drive units and incorporated the specification into our technical standards.