Page 20 - Logistics News Oct Nov 2020

RFID
RFID, UVC bring safety
to air flight baggage
With a sterilisation system deployed at Chubu Airport, and with RFID readers to capture
the tag IDs of baggage and carts, Japanese research group ARTA intends to offer safety and
notifications to incoming passengers, reducing the risk of disease transmission.
TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES, under the
leadership of Japan’s NPO Airport RFID
Technology Alliance (ARTA), have developed
an Ultraviolet-C (UVC) light-sterilisation
system, along with a baggage arrival
notification system for passengers, to reduce
the risk of COVID-19 transmission.
The solution’s purpose is twofold: to
sterilise bags and the carts that transport
those bags, and to track data regarding
where the bags are located as they move
through the process. This enables airports to
better ensure social distancing at carousels,
the company reports.
RFID also creates an automatic record of
when baggage carts are sterilised in order
to provide information to passengers using
the carts and to airport management. The
system is being demonstrated at Chubu
Airport, leveraging SICK software as well as
UHF RFID tags provided by Toppan Forms,
Sankei, Naxis and Avery Dennison. Denso
Wave provided the readers. An app used by
passengers on their mobile phones to receive
baggage arrival information was developed
18
By Claire Swedberg, courtesy RFID Journal
by Saitama University, while Iwasaki Electric
provided the UVC technology.
The demonstration began on 14 October
and was expected to continue until 6
November. The results will be reviewed by
participants until the end of the month, after
which ARTA hopes to see a commercialised
model deployed at major Japanese airports.
Keisuke Hatano, ARTA’s Executive Director
says that with the solution, COVID-19
infections can be prevented from entering
an airport if proper screening is employed.
“We have seen arriving passengers showing
COVID-19 positive upon arrival testing,” he
says, so the risk to public health is not only
from an individual who has tested positive,
but also from their luggage. Hatano says that
while there are no known cases of COVID-19
being spread on contaminated bags, the
system offers a safeguard to prevent such an
incident from occurring. “We should deal with
all possibilities to make passengers, airport
staff and local residents feel safe.”
Some airports apply disinfectants to arriving
baggage, though there is rarely any way
October/November 2020 | Logistics News