Self-serve gas pumps were popularized at gas stations during the 1970s. More recently, pay-at-the-pump, credit-card-processing machines have become a standard fixture. Now, a Swedish company called Autofill AB is bidding to automate the gas station visit even more with its robotic pump.
Autofill and its US subsidiary, Trans Robotics Inc., in Jacksonville, Florida, are testing a robotic refueling technology with British Petroleum (BP) at a site in Cleveland and plan other trials with major American gas companies later this year.
"A typical motorist entering a gas station with the Autofill system would simply pull up to the pump, roll down their window, insert their gas card or ATM card into a slot, and perform the transaction, much like an ATM transaction," said Claus Holm, president of Trans Robotics. "The robotic system looks for the fuel door, opens it, and then opens the nozzle and dispenses gas. When it is done, it pulls back, closes the fuel door, and the customer is free to go."
The automated gas pump can fill 'er up in 90 seconds, but consumers must refit their cars with a spring-loaded "fuel flap" - which gives the robot arm easy access to the fueling system - to be able to use it. A microwave system, with an antenna and search mechanism, locates the fuel door, and a microchip installed on the fuel door helps guide the robot arm to the precise location.
"It's very similar to in-flight refueling," said Holm. "There are many technologies you can use to find the fuel door. But the trick is to find it every time, whether it is dark or light. The method we have chosen finds the door every time. This is no photographic system, where you would be dependent upon light systems, and where grease and dirt and dust can inhibit the process."
But skeptics say the technology is far from a proven concept, and it may take time to work an array of possible problems out.
Making the technology succeed in the commercial marketplace is quite different from a test market, said Joseph Bruening, a professor and expert in the history of science and technology at the University of Mississippi. Bruening notes that American roads are filled with cars of all shapes and sizes, and "it may be impossible to refuel the cars without a lot of finagling. They've developed this in Sweden. But most of the cars on the road there are Saabs and Volvos. Not much variation. That is not the case in the U.S."
Bruening thinks gas stations may also have to install guidance rails, much like those in a car wash, for cars to properly align with the gas pumps.
The gas company's own employees are taking part in the beta test at BP in Cleveland, and Autofill plans several other tests later this year with other major oil companies.
The commercial rollout? Perhaps by 1999, on a limited basis, said Holm. There are some 200,000 gas stations in North America that could use the technology, he added. There is no official word as to how cars would be retrofitted, but early thinking is that microchips and fuel flaps would be given away for free to consumers, much as cellular phones are given away by telcos, which make money on the service charges.
"This is the future of refueling," Holm concluded. "Thirty to 40 percent of the gas stations in North America could have this technology in five to ten years."
