RFID technology gives the Internet of Things greater digital perception

Since the beginning of this year, many people have found that they have participated in "cloud travel" more and more often in their circle of friends. During holidays, whether it is the mountains and mountains in China or the five lakes and four seas abroad, there are always people who take you to appreciate the beauty of the world.

With the continuous release of consumer demand, the recovery and positive trend of the civil aviation market has been continuously consolidated. Through the "Statistical Communiqué on the Development of the Civil Aviation Industry in 2023" just released, people have read the new endogenous driving force released by the vigorous development of the civil aviation industry-in 2023, the industry will complete a total transport turnover of 118.834 billion ton-kilometers, passenger transport volume of 620 million people, and cargo and mail transport volume of 7.3538 million tons, an increase of 98.3%, 146.1% and 21% year-on-year respectively, and the industry's transportation production has shown a good recovery and steady situation.

Behind the concentrated release of demand and the rapid development of the industry, China's civil aviation is committed to creating a new smart civil aviation travel experience of "people enjoy their travel and goods flow smoothly". To achieve this, we need to build a fully connected civil aviation digital perception network. In this process, radio frequency identification (RFID) technology plays an important role.

Create a unique electronic "ID Card"

This year is a critical year for civil aviation to shift from recovery and development to incremental quality improvement. At present, civil aviation transportation production has recovered safely, orderly and steadily, high-quality development has achieved new results, and various production and operation data have shown a rapid growth trend.

The "2023 Civil Aviation Industry Development Statistical Bulletin" shows that in 2023, the industry will complete a total transport turnover of 118.834 billion ton-kilometers, a passenger turnover of 1030.898 billion person-kilometers, and a cargo and mail turnover of 28.362 billion ton-kilometers, up 98.3%, 163.4%, and 11.6% year-on-year respectively; complete passenger transportation volume of 619.5764 million people and cargo and mail transportation volume of 7.3538 million tons, up 146.1% and 21.0% year-on-year respectively. The industry's transport airlines completed 12.209 million transport flight hours and 4.9219 million transport takeoffs, up 94.5% and 91.8% year-on-year respectively. There are 4,270 civil aviation transport aircraft in the industry, 105 more than at the end of 2022. There are 61,480 pilots in my country's transport airlines, 3,626 more than in 2022; there are 86,520 flight attendants, 1,827 more than in 2022. There are 77,021 licensed maintenance personnel in the industry, 8,029 more than in 2022; there are 11,753 licensed dispatchers, 497 more than in 2022.

These groups of figures not only show the booming development of the civil aviation industry, but also let people see the large scale of the civil aviation industry, the long business chain, and the large number of employees. As we all know, civil aviation is an industry immersed in big data, and a large amount of data is generated every day with the takeoff and landing of flights. As the scale of the industry continues to expand, how to effectively collect information and efficiently use information has become the focus of the industry.

Many experts said in an interview with reporters that in the process of building smart civil aviation, some civil aviation enterprises' information systems have data that is independent of each other, and information is often missed, collected late, collected repeatedly, or cannot be collected. The overall utilization efficiency of data still needs to be improved.

To solve this problem, large-scale automated collection of information is the basis. At present, airlines, airports, air traffic control, etc. are exploring technical means to improve the quality of data collection and application. Among these technologies, RFID is particularly concerned. According to the "China Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology Policy White Paper", RFID is a non-contact automatic identification technology that uses radio frequency communication. RFID tags have the characteristics of small size, large capacity, long life, and reusability. They can support fast reading and writing, non-visual identification, mobile identification, multi-target identification, positioning and long-term tracking management.

The hardware of the RFID system is mainly composed of three parts: radio frequency tags, readers and writers, and transceiver antennas. RFID combined with Internet, communication and other technologies can achieve global object tracking and information sharing. Simply put, in the world of the Internet of Things, RFID technology can provide a unique electronic "ID card" for each item. Therefore, this technology has been widely used in industries such as logistics, manufacturing, and public information services, effectively reducing costs while greatly improving management and operational efficiency.

It sounds quite magical, but in fact, everyone is familiar with RFID technology, because the second-generation ID card contains a non-copyable RFID chip. Because of this, passengers can use their ID cards as "electronic tickets" when taking airplanes, high-speed trains and other means of transportation.

In recent years, with the continuous development of technologies such as large-scale integrated circuits, network communications, and information security, the use of RFID technology has become more and more extensive. In the field of civil aviation, RFID technology is showing its prowess.

Let "speaking passengers" have a trace to follow

Due to its characteristics of high-speed moving object recognition, multi-target recognition, and non-contact recognition, RFID technology is considered to be the most promising information technology in the 21st century. In the field of civil aviation, RFID technology is familiar to the public for its outstanding performance in baggage tracking and recognition.

After the luggage is identified by RFID, the entire process of luggage transportation can be accurately tracked (data map)

In early 2019, China Eastern Airlines launched the first civil aviation RFID luggage tracking system in China. While waiting for the plane at the boarding gate, passengers can see the accurate positioning message of their checked luggage "sent" on China Eastern Airlines' WeChat applet - security check has been completed, it has arrived at the apron, and it is being loaded on the plane... In the same year, the newly put into operation Beijing Daxing International Airport fully adopted RFID technology in the baggage system, which effectively improved the airport and airlines' collection rate of luggage transportation information and the accuracy of luggage tracking, and realized the real-time sharing and precise positioning of luggage information, so that passengers' luggage can be "traceable". Since then, airlines such as Air China, China Southern Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines and major airports have introduced RFID-related technical equipment to improve the level of luggage service.

When tracking luggage, RFID technology can identify specific targets and read and write related data through radio signals, and complete luggage sorting through luggage flip tray sorting machines. Compared with traditional optical recognition equipment (ATR), RFID technology is not affected by conditions such as barcode position, bending, background light, printing quality, and debris covering the barcode surface. At the same time, the baggage barcode comes with a built-in chip, which records the baggage tag number, flight number, date, and destination information. After the baggage is identified by RFID, its current location will be automatically collected into the database, thereby achieving accurate tracking of the entire baggage transportation process. Data shows that in actual baggage sorting, the RFID technology recognition rate is as high as 98%, and the baggage mishandling rate has dropped significantly.

The potential of RFID technology in the civil aviation field is more than that. The "Roadmap for the Construction of Smart Civil Aviation" clearly states in the "Promoting the Application of Internet of Things Technology" section that it will actively explore the application of various digital perception technologies such as RFID, biometrics, image recognition, and detection radar in various scenarios such as airports and air traffic control, realize the full acquisition of the status of various elements and resources, and build a comprehensive Internet of Things civil aviation digital perception network.

In addition to baggage tracking, more and more airlines are currently exploring the "new way to play" of RFID technology. As "passengers who can't speak", some air cargo products have also been labeled with RFID.

Security inspection is an important part of the air cargo security chain. Under the traditional operation mode, air cargo security inspection is mostly carried out by manually unpacking suspicious goods for inspection, and security inspection information relies on paper records for storage and transmission, which has problems such as low security inspection efficiency and difficulty in information tracing. After attaching ultra-high frequency RFID tags to the goods, airlines can use RFID tags as information identifiers to bind the goods, thereby achieving accurate tracking and accurate sorting of the goods. For high-value-added products with strict transportation conditions such as biomedicine and precision electronics, RFID technology is an important support for more efficient and reliable air cargo services.

RFID technology is also worthy of attention in service areas such as live animal transportation. With the development of the economy and society, pets have become an indispensable part of many families, and more and more passengers want to travel with their pets during holidays. Faced with this emerging service market, major airlines and airports have introduced measures to expand the pet economy. As a special type of consigned cargo, the transportation of live animals not only involves more information, but also has higher requirements for security services. Some studies believe that with the continuous increase in the demand for pet consignment, it is necessary for relevant units to improve the efficiency and quality of transportation services through technical means. In terms of information collection, RFID technology can effectively manage the identity characteristics, vaccination status and health information of pets, and provide data support for transportation and epidemic prevention. At the same time, the technology can also record operational information, environmental information, etc. during transportation, so that relevant rights and responsibilities can be better clarified in the event of an accident.

Lean management solves difficult problems in front-line work

As a technology widely used in the fields of ID card and ticket management, special equipment and dangerous goods management, RFID can not only help the civil aviation industry empower traditional businesses and open up new markets, but also help companies reduce costs and increase efficiency.

As we all know, aircraft involve many types of parts, large quantities and high costs. As the scale of airlines expands, the variety and quantity of aviation materials continue to increase, and the difficulty and complexity of aviation material management increase. In terms of management, aircraft maintenance companies can use RFID technology to produce unique RFID tags that correspond to aviation materials one by one according to the name, model and part number of aviation materials, thereby achieving effective management of aviation materials.

Aircraft maintenance not only involves many parts, but also many types of Tools used by maintenance personnel. Aircraft maintenance companies can create intelligent aviation maintenance tool management systems based on RFID technology, such as smart tool warehouses, smart tool boxes, smart tools, etc., to make maintenance tool management more convenient, avoid accidental loss, and ensure maintenance efficiency and safety.

In addition, RFID technology has also been applied by some airlines in File management. For airlines, international routes are an important part of their business. When flying international flights, all flight crew members hold pasSports for official business, which need to be handled, preserved, issued and recovered by the company in accordance with regulations. Therefore, the management of flight crew members' passports for official business has always been a key and difficult issue in flight production and operation. This is because different countries require different passports, and a flight crew member often has multiple passports for official business. Before performing international flight missions, the passport manager will prepare all the passports required for international flights departing the next day. The passports of each international flight are uniformly checked and collected by designated personnel before departure, and are uniformly returned after the flight mission is completed. For a long time, the issuance and recovery of passports have been operated manually, and incomplete records or counting errors may occur during peak flight times or when encountering large-scale flight delays. At the same time, situations such as the same name, similar names, and adhesion can also lead to misloading, overloading, or underloading, affecting flight production and operation. In order to reduce such mistakes, some airlines have introduced ultra-high frequency RFID technology and combined it with flight data to realize the electronic management process of official passports, thereby improving the rigor and traceability of official passport management.

Behind the above applications, the more important role of RFID technology is to improve the data quality of the industry from the source through automated data collection, laying the foundation for managing and using data well. Entering a new stage of development, creating value with technology is an important measure for civil aviation to cope with changes in the development environment and promote quality and efficiency improvement in the industry. Only by fully releasing the driving potential of technology for the industry can the civil aviation industry develop with higher quality and greater vitality.