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Sunday, 1 January 2005 | Elif Sungur
An Airport without Airplanes: The Siemens Airport Center
Siemens has built an airport in order to test and present high-tech solutions for check-in, baggage transport and parking guidance systems. Only airplanes, a control tower and runways are missing from the Siemens Airport Center (SAC) in Fürth near Nuremberg, Germany. The facility is about the size of a soccer field and contains the entire infrastructure normally found at an airport, including check-in counters, a luggage conveyor, a parking guidance system and a control center. The SAC enables Siemens to simulate and extensively test complex processes together with customers. It shows that the company can offer complete solutions for airports thanks to the bundling of competences from several Siemens businesses.
SAC allows real-time simulations with all relevant influential factors, including passengers checking in, which makes it possible for Siemens to improve its planning for real projects and implement such projects more rapidly. Experts at the Boston Consulting Group expect that the continuing urbanization megatrend will lead to investments of $200 billion in airports between now and 2015. In Beijing, for example, a new terminal is currently being built that will accommodate 30 million passengers per year, doubling capacity at the airport. Terminal 3 has to be completed in time for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing - and the interaction of key components is now being tested at SAC. That's because Siemens will be delivering a baggage transport system worth €170 million. The high-speed system will have a total length of 50 kilometers and link 330 check-in counters.
Smooth cooperation between experts is essential when building an airport, which is why SAC is manned by staff from nearly all the specialist fields in which Siemens does business. These experts work together to create innovations. SAC is equipped with products such as transport and sorting systems, x-ray devices for checking luggage, and components delivered by suppliers from around the world. Simulations include a docking system for aircraft that uses a video camera to assist pilots in positioning their airliners at the gangway. The facility also has complete WLAN coverage, which ensures convenient Internet access and phone calls.
The Simulated Terminal: a Test Center of Superlatives
The Siemens Airport Center (SAC) is a test center of superlatives. Its automated baggage transport system, for example, can handle 30 million pieces of luggage per year. In Germany, only the systems in Munich and Frankfurt are larger - and these were built by Siemens as well. Luggage races along the conveyor belts in containers at a maximum speed of ten meters per second (36 km/h). The faster the belts run at an airport, the less time it takes to change planes. Each piece of luggage has a barcode, and each container is equipped with an RFID chip that contains information on the luggage and its final destination. The sorting facility can process up to 5,000 pieces of luggage per hour. A total of 1,200 proximity switches and light barriers, as well as 545 drives, ensure that everything runs smoothly. The more extensively a luggage transport system is tested, the less time it takes for Siemens engineers to install it in a real airport and put it into operation. What's more, staff and maintenance personnel from an airport can come to SAC to become familiar with the conveyor system and to train on it.
Checking in at an airport should be a process that is as secure as possible - but also a convenient one. Customers can test a new mobile check-in system at SAC. With this system, the passenger's cell phone becomes a boarding card: The passenger loads a program onto the cell phone, and after booking an electronic ticket they receive a text message in the form of a two-dimensional barcode containing the flight number, departure gate and seat number. The system recognizes this barcode - and thus the passenger - when he or she comes to the check-in counter or boards the plane. Biometric data can also be integrated into the system, making it even safer to check in. At SAC, passengers can be identified by means of their fingerprints or via a three-dimensional facial recognition system developed by Siemens. The automatic system projects a color grid onto the passenger's face and takes a picture of it. The facial contours are then digitized and stored. In order to be reliably identified by the system, a passenger boarding a flight simply presses a finger onto a scanner or glances into a camera.
For more information, please visit http//www.siemens.com
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