Company insight
Connectivity is the key to Airport 4.0
Digitalisation is the term that will define the current era of technological innovation. It promises the opportunity to replace cumbersome manual processes with slick automation and process efficiency. Jim Banks talks to Niren Choudhary, business development – aviation, ports and transportation at Nokia, about how airports can meet this opportunity with next-level connectivity.
he world is in the grips of the fourth industrial revolution and Industry 4.0 promises to open up many competitive opportunities for businesses – airports among them – that can leverage the power of the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and other smart, connected technologies that will take automation to the next level. “Digitalisation allows airports to embrace paperless operations, enhance their operational and situational awareness and, consequently, target
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passenger experience. Many technologies will shape this vision of the future, but behind them all will be a platform for wireless connectivity to bring all of these systems together.
“Many of the applications required by paperless operations will need to rely on wireless connectivity and, as the journey towards Airport 4.0 continues, the importance of connectivity grows,” says Choudhary. “Connectivity can no longer be treated as a commodity. It is a strategic asset that is as important to an airport as the runway.”
“Digitalisation allows airports to embrace paperless operations, enhance their operational and situational awareness and, consequently, target a lower cost base to become more competitive.”
a lower cost base to become more competitive,” says Niren Choudhary, business development – aviation, ports and transportation at global communications company Nokia. “The impact of airport digitalisation is already significant,” he adds. “Biometric readers, self-service luggage tagging, systems, real-time flight information and automated border control have improved passenger flow, passenger experience and airport profitability. But all of these subsystems require connectivity.” The aviation industry is moving inevitably towards the era of Airport 4.0, in which airports will leverage a digital framework that will support infrastructure and technological innovation to optimise terminal processes, operational efficiency, revenue generation and regulatory compliance, as well as
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LTE/5G private wireless to push performance
At present, airports rely on shared wireless networks to support operational and passenger services. These networks, however, were not built to support the volume of data required by today’s digital applications. They simply do not provide sufficient bandwidth to handle the demands of the systems that will be vital to Airport 4.0.
In the age of digitalisation, smart systems will require higher levels of reliability and lower levels of latency that shared networks cannot deliver. Airport 4.0 applications are hungry for bandwidth and will require an industrial-grade platform for wireless connectivity that can only be provided by a private wireless network based on LTE – the 4G wireless standard – and, ultimately, 5G.
For Choudhary, private wireless networks will help airports to accelerate digital transformation by connecting all their stakeholders, processes and systems. “For business process digitalisation, many airports have faced challenges in helping airlines and airport services companies reliably connect devices to their back end systems,” he explains. “Wi-Fi suffers from unsatisfactory ‘under the wing’ performance and does not always support proper handovers by design. Public cellular services have never been designed for the specific requirements of airport operations. Both are built for enterprises that can tolerate coverage gaps and best-effort wireless services, but not for airports.” The shortcomings of Wi-Fi and public cellular data services make it more difficult for airports to fully realise the benefits of digitalisation and unearth the efficiency, cost-savings, and competitive passenger experience improvements that await them.
“Airports need to reconsider their wireless strategy, keeping in mind that connectivity will become a strategic production asset in the journey towards Airport 4.0,” says Choudhary. “With private LTE/5G wireless, airports can provide pervasive connectivity with guaranteed services to their stakeholders in a reliable and secure way, which is very different from the situation today.”
A new paradigm for connectivity Until recently, airports were not able to access the necessary LTE networks, which were previously only available to mobile network operators. Nevertheless, since governments around the world
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