Annually, over the last seventeen years, the Passenger Terminal Expo has brought over 180 airport sector professionals together in a different city. This year it was in Paris, so we went to see some of the innovations destined for airports of the future, and here are three that caught our attention.
At the airport, you have to register your luggage, for which, The German company, Materna, produces self bag drop stations.
Michael Overkämping - Product manager - Materna
‘‘At the airport, having already checked in, all you need is your boarding pass.’’
The terminal delivers the luggage tags and allows you to pay by credit card for any extras. Lufthansa has already set up terminals, like this one, at airports in Munich and Frankfurt.
And if you cannot find the registration desk, Arinc, a subsidiary of Rockwell Collins, can check you in from anywhere via a tablet. Called ‘‘vMuse’’, this system also includes a portable printer that will print out your boarding pass, wherever you are in the airport.
Once registered, you might have time for a little shopping. To help you, NEC has designed a screen that recognizes you, and adapts the relevant advertisements displayed.
Alain Meneghini - Sales Engineer - NEC
‘‘Here, we present a facial analysis solution called, a field analyst, which defines the age and sex of the person in front of the screen. From then on, it is possible to send different interactive content, according to the detected person. A very interesting tool for advertising agencies, and others.’’
A technology that can also be adapted to the identification of suspicious individuals at the airport from a police file. This system is undergoing testing at Singapore and London - Heathrow airports.
Innovations that will soon benefit the almost three and a half billion passengers per year who use airports worldwide.
