Airport baggage RFID automatic sorting system design solution

1. Background

With the deepening of domestic economic reform and opening up, the domestic civil aviation industry has flourished, the number of airport passengers has continued to increase, and the baggage handling volume has also reached a new peak. For large airports, baggage handling has always been a huge and complex task, especially the frequent terrorist attacks on the aviation industry, which has put forward higher requirements for baggage identification and tracking technology. Therefore, how to effectively manage a large amount of accumulated baggage and improve handling efficiency has become an important issue facing airlines.

In order to meet the new challenges of passenger baggage to the handling capacity of the airport conveying system, Guangdong Hanglian Technology has developed a baggage automatic sorting system and applied it to the baggage automatic sorting system. The system identifies passenger baggage through barcode labels and realizes baggage sorting and processing by identifying barcodes during the conveying process. Although the baggage tracking system of global airlines is relatively mature, even in the most ideal situation, the barcode system can only correctly read 8 to 9 pieces of baggage out of 10 pieces, which means that airlines need to continuously invest a lot of time and energy in manual operations to transport the sorted baggage to different flights. In addition, barcode scanning has high requirements for directionality, which greatly increases the extra workload of airport staff during the baggage packaging process.

Simply using barcodes for baggage matching and sorting is a time-consuming and labor-intensive task, and may even cause serious flight delays.

Improving the automation and sorting accuracy of airport baggage automatic sorting systems is of great significance for ensuring public travel safety, reducing the work pressure of airport sorting personnel, and improving the overall operation efficiency of airports.

RFID wireless radio frequency identification technology is widely regarded as one of the most promising technologies in the 21st century. It is a new technology that has triggered changes in the field of automatic identification after barcode technology. It has non-line-of-sight, long-distance, low-directional requirements, and fast and accurate wireless communication capabilities. Therefore, it has been increasingly used in airport baggage automatic sorting systems. Finally, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) unanimously passed a resolution in October 2005 to make UHF (ultra-high frequency) RFID strap-type tags the only standard for airline baggage tags.

2. System Architecture

The RFID baggage automatic sorting system adopts RFID wireless radio frequency identification technology. By attaching RFID electronic tags to the luggage randomly checked by each passenger on the plane, the personal information, departure port, arrival port, flight number, parking space, take-off time and other information of the luggage are recorded. Electronic tag reading and writing equipment is installed at each control node of the baggage flow, such as sorting, loading and baggage claiming. When the tagged luggage passes through each node, the RFID Reader will read the information in the tag and transmit it to the database, realizing the information sharing and monitoring of the luggage in the whole transportation process.

3. System Process

1. Passengers check in their luggage at the departure check-in counter at the airport. The staff completes the check-in registration according to the passenger's boarding pass and prints the RFID baggage tag.

2. The RFID baggage tag is installed on the luggage and put into the luggage conveyor.

3. When the luggage passes through the RFID collection channel, the RFID reader will read the information in the RFID tag and upload it to the conveyor control system.

4. The conveyor control system correctly sorts the luggage to the corresponding flight's luggage compartment slot based on the information obtained.

5. The porter transfers the luggage of the corresponding flight to the luggage box, loads it onto the tractor, and finally loads it into the aircraft cargo hold.

The airport baggage automatic sorting system adopts RFID technology, identifies the luggage through RFID electronic tags, and uses wireless radio frequency signals to automatically identify the target luggage. Regardless of whether the luggage object is moving at high speed or not, the system can identify it at the same time, without manual intervention, and the operation is quick and convenient. The mechanization rate of RFID technology has reached more than 95%, which greatly reduces the possibility of luggage loss, delay and miscarriage from a technical point of view. In addition, RFID technology can work in various harsh environments, enhance the safety of passenger luggage, and significantly reduce the error rate and other problems.

Each RFID reader can be connected to the server through the network to effectively record, track and monitor all aspects of baggage consignment. The system can grasp the entire baggage transportation process in real time and manage it dynamically. The management personnel can make targeted management decisions based on statistical data and the situation of each link, thereby improving the information and intelligent level of airport baggage consignment management.

IV. Key technologies of the system

High-speed data acquisition

In order to meet the requirements of the increasing number of passenger luggage and high-speed conveyors at airports, RFID readers need to have high-speed data acquisition capabilities.

Stability

The system needs to run stably in an environment where it runs continuously for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and the RFID device must be stable.

Reliability

The baggage sorting system needs to accurately obtain the information of each piece of luggage, and the RFID device must be highly reliable and able to accurately collect the information of each piece of luggage.

Compatibility

The core control part of the automatic baggage sorting system generally uses PLC, and the RFID device needs to be compatible with PLC and support instruction set control.