While many of the flashy, marquee mobility and transportation demos that go on at CES tend to be of the more... aspirational variety, Honda's electric cargo hauler, the Autonomous Work Vehicle (AWV), could soon find use on airport grounds as the robotic EV trundles towards commercial operations. Honda first debuted the AWV as part of its CES 2018 companion mobility demonstration, then partnered with engineering firm Black & Veatch to further develop the platform. The second-generation AWV was capable of being remotely piloted or following a preset path while autonomously avoiding obstacles. It could carry nearly 900 pounds of sutff onboard and atow another 1,600 pounds behind it, both on-road and off-road. Those second-gen prototypes spent countless hours ferrying building materials back and forth across a 1,000-acre solar panel construction worksite, both individually and in teams, as part of the development process.

Canada's busiest airport will soon be using artificial intelligence-powered technology to detect weapons. The operator of Toronto's Pearson International Airport says it has agreed to test the new system developed at an Ivy League American university and marketed by a B.C. company. Vancouver-based Liberty Defense Holdings Ltd. says the technology, known as Hexwave, can detect both metallic and non-metallic weapons ranging from guns and knives to explosives. It operates by capturing radar images, then using artificial intelligence to analyze those images for signs of a weapon concealed in bags or under clothing. Liberty says the technology is not able to recognize facial features and therefore does not pose a privacy risk, a position experts in the field view with some skepticism.