Largest airport in Hamburg !

The technology controlling the vehicles is based on the Faller Car System in which a magnet, attached to the steering arm guides the vehicle along a steel wire beneath the road’s surface as it’s driven by a battery-operated motor. To manage the complexity of coordinating the movements of 90 vehicles the Brauns added a sophisticated computer control system. Each vehicle has its own processor that “assesses its situation” 20 times a second. The rules of the roads are determined by virtual street signs that tell the vehicles which roads they can drive down (TARMAC: DO NOT ENTER) or when they have to stop at a stop sign or red light. They even detect other vehicles and avoid them as when one merges into traffic. And a vehicle can either have a set destination–as a bus hitting its stops or a fire truck responding to an emergency–or it can simply cruise the streets. They even wait patiently behind other vehicles in the event of traffic.

Sophisticated indeed.

But an airport’s not an airport unless its planes can taxi, takeoff, and land. Knuffingen’s fleet can do all that. They don’t actually fly but are lifted off the ground by small wires. You can tell from the video that the Brauns made sure that the speed of their planes’ takeoff and landing motions were also to scale. The realism is impressive as the planes come in, back wheels touching first before the front wheel noses gently down.

The airport, roughly 150 square meters (over 1,600 square feet), is breathtaking to behold. But the Brauns’ masterpiece is even more than an autonomous feast for the eyes: it’s interactive. Visitors can push buttons on the railing surrounding the model airport to induce up to 11 different programmed scenarios. A visitor who pushes the button labeled “Fire incident” will see smoke begin to billow out of a house, and then actual flames. The fire house will sound the alarm and begin flashing its lights. Moments later the fire brigade–3-4 vehicles located randomly about the airport–will turn on their lights and start heading towards the fire. At intersections the fire engines will sound their horns and cars will yield the right of way. Meanwhile the fire grows bigger! After the fire engines converge on the burning house the PC decides whether or not the fire has been successfully put out. If not, another alarm is sounded and additional fire engines (up to 35!) from the neighborhood come to the rescue.

Now that’s just awesome.