Beyond Baggage

The use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for air travel brings one connection immediately to mind: keeping track of passengers' baggage. The use of RFID to reduce the rate of lost bags and to improve the overall efficiency of the baggage handling process has received much media and industry attention. As it turns out, however, suitcases are only the beginning.

Indeed, RFID – which uses tags that transmit data to readers using low-energy radio waves – has proven itself useful at keeping tabs on luggage. Boeing and FedEx used Motorola equipment to prove its viability in 2004 tests, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved the use of passive tags on aircraft in May, 2005. Hong Kong International Airport and Las Vegas McCarran International Airport have been successful early adopters of RFID baggage tracking systems.

Now, RFID is moving into other parts of the aircraft and other facets of the industry. While some physical and regulatory hurdles remain before it can be fully adopted, the technology is showing considerable promise.

Aircraft Parts

The May 2005 FAA ruling also permits operators to use passive RFID tags on aircraft parts. The federal government requires individual tracking of parts and their maintenance histories, and the current industry standard for compliance uses bar codes.

In the wake of the ruling, Boeing mandated RFID tagging for 2,000 parts in its new 787 Dreamliner, scheduled to enter service in 2010. Manufacturers must affix UHF tags to the parts before shipping them to Boeing, and airlines who buy the planes will be able to encode the maintenance data directly on the tags.

RFID can track multiple items in a single pass without individual line-of-sight scans.

Bar code readers require line-of-sight access to their tags, which makes it hard to use them in the cramped mechanical and avionics spaces of an aircraft. In some cases, crews even have to use mirrors to see part numbers, which they key in by hand. Bar code reads are only 75% to 80% accurate.

In contrast, passive RFID allows users to improve their daily processes and productivity. For example, crews can scan all the parts in a section of the plane in a single sweep. RFID removes both bar code and human error from the data entry process, and averages better than 99% accuracy. In the shop, a mechanic can determine a part's history even if there is no access to a database; the information is there in the tag. Between flights, a ground crew can save valuable turnaround time by using hand-held RFID scanners to account for tagged life jackets and emergency equipment as required by law.

Other industry forays into RFID parts-tagging have been ground-based. In Hamburg, Germany, Siemens teamed with Airbus for a successful test of RFID in tracking materials used to paint and fit out its new A380 passenger planes. Goodrich Aviation Technical Services, the largest third-party provider of aviation MRO services, is taking a hard look at the possible implementation of RFID in its Everett, WA, facility, which processes more than 175,000 parts a year.

Prospects for RFID management in aviation include the same supply chain efficiencies that RFID has brought to other industries. The technology can also enhance security by verifying compliance with foreign object detection (FOD) zones around aircraft undergoing maintenance.

Cargo Units, turnaround time

Unit Load Devices (ULDs) – the specially shaped cargo units designed to speed the loading and unloading of aircraft cargo spaces – carry goods of every description and value. They're also valuable themselves, whether owned by a single carrier or shipper or shared through multilateral agreements.

The Luxembourg-based carrier Cargolux reported losing 2% of its ULDs in 2003, and Lufthansa and Air France lose 5% to 6% of them each year. In the most striking cases, people near airports in developing countries have even adopted ULDs as housing. Many of these losses are the result of tracking breakdowns. Cargolux estimates that reducing its ULD loss rate by 1% each year would save almost $80,000 in direct costs, not counting staff time, insurance costs, and the cost of keeping extra units at each station.

RFID tagging of ULDs and their contents is catching on. In 2006, a major airline used Motorola tags and readers in a successful test of air cargo tracking that generated 100% read rates at airports in Florida and Canada. Perhaps more importantly, the pilot showed that RFID transmissions didn't interfere with normal operations.

The use of RFID in air cargo is in its early days. One development that will speed its adoption is mobile technology for capturing and using the data on tags – such as wearable and hand-held readers linked wirelessly to enterprise management software. Because of the enhanced granularity and visibility of information generated by RFID tracking, its adoption is sure to spread, and may even become a value-added service that airports offer to cargo companies.

RFID tags contain a silicon chip that holds data or information about the product that is carrying the tag. When near an RFID reader, an antenna transmits radio waves with the data to the reader.

Airport turnaround times are a major concern for the industry. A recent study at the Institute for Manufacturing in Cambridge, UK, showed that the need for airlines to minimize costs and improve on time departures is greater than ever: the average departure delay of an aircraft is 17.4 minutes, which equates to departure delays of more than 605 hours (25 days) every year. The cost of UK departure delays in 2005 was over £650million (about $1.28 billion in today's dollars). The International Air Transport Association (IATA), together with SITA, is sponsoring a study to explore how RFID can improve turnaround times in order to reduce aircraft delays and, ultimately, costs.

Horizons for RFID

RFID is poised to spread through the aviation industry just as it has in other environments, but aviation presents special challenges.

Two of them – the regulatory environment in the industry and the physical environment of an aircraft in flight – go hand in hand. The FAA has approved the use of passive RFID tags while planes are on the ground, but active and battery-assisted tags remain off-limits, and no RFID system can be used when a plane is flying or even on a taxiway.

Boeing has conducted tests of active tags on aircraft, with promising results – the tags didn't interfere with flight operations, and their longer read-range meant that ground crews could scan locations throughout a plane without going inside, simply by opening one of the main hatches. If the FAA approves them for widespread use, active tags paired with temperature or other sensors could send real-time maintenance information to on-board wireless networks.

The physics of flight also involve shock, vibration, dirt, temperature extremes and an abundance of metal – a surface that hasn't always meshed well with RFID tagging. New tag technologies, ceramic and metal-friendly mountings, will move the technology past these hurdles.

RFID systems must also account for the diversity of operators in aviation. The solution lies in wireless system architecture such as Motorola's Wireless Next Generation (Wi-NG) switching platform, which can manage complex networks in a way that's operationally seamless and scalable. Many RFID systems can integrate with Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, and other data management networks. Key is enterprise mobility – an RFID system that succeeds in an aviation environment will need to function through readers and IT hardware that can bring data back to the enterprise.

From building planes to operating them safely, to filling them with profitable payloads, RFID has a great deal to offer the aviation industry, and the major players in aviation have shown leadership in testing and adopting the technology. When the FAA opens the door to broader use of RFID tagging, on the ground and in the air, RFID will give everyone in aviation a smoother ride.

Motorola, Enterprise Mobility Business, RFID Division
Holtsville, NY
symbol.com/industry-solutions/manufacturing-solutions