£1.43m · Grant · Transportation · Coventry, UK
Coventry-based Aurrigo, which builds autonomous vehicles and fleet software for aviation and transport customers, has been awarded a £1.43m UK government grant for SENTRY, a project testing whether its Auto-Shuttle vehicles can carry out safety and inspection work at airports. The vehicles will patrol secure areas, inspect airport perimeters, monitor and deter birds, and identify runway or taxiway damage and loose objects.
The award sits within the CAM Pathfinder programme, delivered with Zenzic and Innovate UK. Aurrigo says SENTRY was due to begin in September 2026, while noting that all UK government grant funding remains subject to approval. The project will draw on Warwick Manufacturing Group, Civil Aviation Authority guidance and a specialist testbed near Teesside International Airport.
Turning airport inspections into a repeatable deployment
Aurrigo's Auto-Shuttle is a ten-seat electric vehicle that can operate autonomously or be driven manually. For SENTRY, the company plans to configure the platform around predefined operating rules agreed with air traffic control, test it in controlled environments and then move into airport conditions at Teesside and Cincinnati. That progression matters because airport inspection is not simply a navigation task: vehicles must work around aircraft, restricted zones and safety procedures while detecting hazards reliably enough for operational teams to act.
The commercial opportunity is to extend an existing airport automation footprint into a new set of jobs. Aurrigo says its Auto-DollyTug and Auto-Cargo vehicles are already in use at eight airports worldwide. If the same autonomy stack can support inspections as well as baggage and cargo movements, each airport deployment can cover more workflows without requiring a separate vehicle platform for every task. SENTRY is designed to measure staff time saved, detection speed and emissions impact, with the findings due to be shared publicly. That evidence can be more valuable than a one-off demonstration: airports and regulators need operating data before changing safety-critical processes. A credible, repeatable report could reduce the work required to evaluate later deployments, although commercial adoption will still depend on performance in real airport conditions.
Grant-backed trials alongside a growing operating base
Aurrigo's interim results for the first half of 2026 reported £4.2m of revenue, up 19% year on year, and confirmed the move of its global headquarters and core manufacturing into a larger Coventry facility. The grant therefore supports a defined adjacent use case for a company that is already delivering airport automation, rather than financing an initial laboratory prototype. The next proof point is whether the trial converts inspection results into a standard operating case that other airports can adopt.
