SPECIAL REPORT: IT
Upwardly mobile
Advances in mobile technology will continue to transform the workplace and make life easier for airport staff, writes Sébastien Fabre.
W
e are on the cusp of a new wave of mobile technology that will radically transform the working practices of airport staff.
It will allow aircraft technicians to be guided through complex
maintenance issues by off-site experts; ground crew to remotely control equipment such as aircraft heaters; and bus drivers to be automatically routed to their next task. Based on their status and location, it could also allow fi re crews to layer a
virtual 3D map over real life so see through the thickest smoke in the event of an emergency. This is all thanks to next-generation visual collaboration, machine-to-
machine communications (M2M), mobile workforce applications and augmented reality to improve safety.
Visual collaboration Visual collaboration combined with mobile communications will help speed up aircraft turnaround times. If aircraft maintenance technicians have a highly technical problem that they cannot rapidly solve onsite, they can use video-enabled PDAs to collaborate with specialists in the aircraft or engine manufacturers’ centres of excellence. The use of high-defi nition video cameras on powerful Wi-Fi-enabled PDAs
will allow the offsite specialist to see faults in great detail, so that they can recommend the correct part or fi x. The specialist will be able to remotely operate cameras (such as zooming
or panning) and also interact with the local technician thanks to visual collaboration tools. Capabilities will include the ability to point to a specifi c part of an image or exchange documents on the fl y.
Augmented reality Last year, mobile augmented reality (AR) caused a stir with consumer applications that layered useful information over real life images captured with a mobile phone. For example, it allowed consumers to hold up a mobile device in the street and see the locations of WiFi hotspots layered over the image. There is great potential for AR in the airport environment. Fire crews could
use an augmented reality application to see through walls and doorways when surrounded by dense, dark smoke. Such technology improves the safety of both fi re crew and any persons caught in the incident and can be used indoors and outdoors. Consumer technology like Google Maps will not be suffi cient for this
level of detail, however. A solution would need to be purpose built, with accurate 3D models of actual buildings and sites, detailing every doorway, window and hazard. The application would also need to be cached locally on the device so that
it can know the device’s exact location by triangulation between WiFi access points (GPS does not work well indoors, while wireless triangulation can be very accurate and reliable). Augmented reality could also have a role in reducing the burden on
customer services staff. Imagine a Chinese passenger arriving in France but not being able to interpret the characters in a Western alphabet and so requires assistance from airport personnel. Instead, he could use an AR application on his smartphone to
translate signs into Chinese. By simply pointing the device’s camera at the sign, it would translate the text in real-time, and layer it over the original sign.
AIRPORT WORLD/OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2010 57
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