A featured contribution from Leadership Perspectives: a curated forum reserved for leaders nominated by our subscribers and vetted by the Construction Tech Review Advisory Board.
Chairman
As aviation industry has taken measures to restart operations, the looming problem is how to better cater for the changing passenger needs and expectations in the post COVID-10 era.
We can predict that innovative technologies, automation, robot and artificial intelligent (AI) will play a key role in building up a safe, secure and healthy experience to restore public confidence in air travel, through quickly adapting airports operations to accommodate for passenger’s health concerns with the pandemic and utilizing the space-efficient security solutions to help follow the social distancing rules, while not compromising the security level.
Speedy and contactless journey
Amidst the pandemic, self-service check-in kiosks and bag drop systems have been rolled out into many airports as an alternative to manual processes in traditional check-in counter, which can help reduce potential queues and crowds in the landside, as well as the interaction between passengers and staff.
E-gates will act as a versatile tool to automate processes of access control and documents verification before the security checkpoint, boarding gate and other touchpoints where frequently involves high-touch and person-to-person contact, delivering greater efficiency and a reduction in crowding throughout the passenger journey in airport. Apart from that, automatic fever alerts and explosive trace detection could be integrated as options for comprehensive security and health purpose.
Due to the high contact nature of the screening process and the tendency for congestion and crowding at security checkpoint, the pandemic may accelerate the utilization of advanced technologies to redesign the security process with the integration of sanitary measures, creating a touchless and more efficient passenger experience and reassuring passengers and airport staff of the safety and security.
UV-C disinfection technology has been quickly trialed and deployed in many airports as a short- and long-term measures to address the heighted needs for hygiene standard, which can automate the cleaning of checkpoint trays during their return from the end to the front of checkpoint lane and kill 99% of bacteria attached on trays.
Approved by ECAC at EDSCB standard C3, CT scanner, ever increasing deployment in Asia, Europe and North America in recent years, can enable liquids and laptops to be left inside passenger bags with its powerful material discrimination capability, reducing the numbers of trays needed and less contact among passengers, staff and the surface of trays. Moreover, its high throughput could help airports maintain a steady passenger flow and make it easier to avoid any congregation of people.
During the pre-pandemic, millimeter wave body scanners have been employed by many airports as an alternative to metal detector, not only improving detection of non-metal items, but also enabling a targeted secondary search by highlighting the position of concealment under clothing on a generic figure. After years of evolution, stand-off body scanning technologies, such as Terahertz technology, has come into the reality in reaching security and safety, help fighting against both terrorist threat and COVID-19 in multiple scenarios.
Automated lanes are already providing greater throughput and less queuing, potentially reshaping the security paradigm in airport when paired with CT scanner and millimeter-wave body scanner in particularly. It could transport the baggage trays automatically, eliminating the need for airport staff to move them back and forth manually, while allowing for multiple passengers with their parallel preparation to speed-up the throughput of the checkpoint. Furthermore, the multiplexing technology brings the central image processing (CIP) to the checkpoint, which allows security staff, previously confined to the scanner, to be transferred to a remote and quiet place away from the hustle and bustle of checkpoints, ensuring social distancing is properly observed between passengers and staff.
Artificial Intelligence and robotization
Disrupting technologies, such as AI, robot, etc. will find their places in aviation to improve automation, mobility and agility. The progress in Artificial Intelligence (AI) has led to transformation of detection technologies and security process in a holistic way. AI-enabled algorithms have greatly improved the capabilities of millimeter wave body scanners and CT scanners in automatic recognition of objects. With more data ingested, it could train itself and evolve into low false alarm rates. A robot-based disinfection system could cover 750 cubic meters in a single run with the disinfection fog and mist. It can work around the clock with steady performance and be automatically recharged during intervals of its operation, reducing the staff’s load in overburdened manual disinfection work.
In a word, the ongoing pandemic presents aviation industry a unique opportunity to adapt quickly to ‘new normal’ and redesign a secure, safe and healthy experience to restoring passenger experience, an important way to recovery from the pandemic.
Approved by ECAC at EDSCB standard C3, CT scanner, ever increasing deployment in Asia, Europe and North America in recent years, can enable liquids and laptops to be left inside passenger bags with its powerful material discrimination capability, reducing the numbers of trays needed and less contact among passengers, staff and the surface of trays. Moreover, its high throughput could help airports maintain a steady passenger flow and make it easier to avoid any congregation of people.
During the pre-pandemic, millimeter wave body scanners have been employed by many airports as an alternative to metal detector, not only improving detection of non-metal items, but also enabling a targeted secondary search by highlighting the position of concealment under clothing on a generic figure. After years of evolution, stand-off body scanning technologies, such as Terahertz technology, has come into the reality in reaching security and safety, help fighting against both terrorist threat and COVID-19 in multiple scenarios.
Automated lanes are already providing greater throughput and less queuing, potentially reshaping the security paradigm in airport when paired with CT scanner and millimeter-wave body scanner in particularly. It could transport the baggage trays automatically, eliminating the need for airport staff to move them back and forth manually, while allowing for multiple passengers with their parallel preparation to speed-up the throughput of the checkpoint. Furthermore, the multiplexing technology brings the central image processing (CIP) to the checkpoint, which allows security staff, previously confined to the scanner, to be transferred to a remote and quiet place away from the hustle and bustle of checkpoints, ensuring social distancing is properly observed between passengers and staff.
Artificial Intelligence and robotization
Disrupting technologies, such as AI, robot, etc. will find their places in aviation to improve automation, mobility and agility. The progress in Artificial Intelligence (AI) has led to transformation of detection technologies and security process in a holistic way. AI-enabled algorithms have greatly improved the capabilities of millimeter wave body scanners and CT scanners in automatic recognition of objects. With more data ingested, it could train itself and evolve into low false alarm rates. A robot-based disinfection system could cover 750 cubic meters in a single run with the disinfection fog and mist. It can work around the clock with steady performance and be automatically recharged during intervals of its operation, reducing the staff’s load in overburdened manual disinfection work.
In a word, the ongoing pandemic presents aviation industry a unique opportunity to adapt quickly to ‘new normal’ and redesign a secure, safe and healthy experience to restoring passenger experience, an important way to recovery from the pandemic.
The articles from these contributors are based on their personal expertise and viewpoints, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of their employers or affiliated organizations.
