First there was ‘virtual reality’, then we were introduced to ‘augmented reality’ and now we could potentially have ‘mixed reality’ at airports, if new HoloLens technology currently being trialled by SITA comes to the market.

Initial trials of the HoloLens at Helsinki Airport apparently went well and, according to SITA, a new world is beginning to emerge where operators can use the technology to analyse and manage airport operations in a mixed reality environment.

Explaining the new technology, Jim Peters, SITA’s chief technology officer and head of SITA Lab, enthused: “Mixed Reality hits a sweet spot of having an experience that is fully immersive for the user, but unlike virtual reality also keeps that person in the real world.

“The user can interact with both and avoids the disorientation or discomfort of fully immersive virtual reality. There are benefits to having multiple people using the headset and simultaneously interacting with the same virtual display. This could be a really useful for scenario planning exercises.”

In effect, HoloLens is the world’s first self-contained holographic computer that enables users to engage with digital content and interact with holograms in the world around them.

It runs Windows 10, and enables the blending of the physical and digital worlds in ways that were previously impossible.

SITA worked with Helsinki Airport to use HoloLens to reproduce the Airport Operational Control Centre (AOCC) in this mixed reality environment.

For this project SITA Lab used a feed from SITA’s Day of Operations technology, which is used by Helsinki Airport, and presented a new way to visualise and interact with the airport’s operational data including aircraft movements, passenger flows and retail analytics.

Wearing the HoloLens, users had a set of screens meshed into a 3D view of the airport allowing them to correlate events from the data dashboards with an immersive real-time model of the airport.

SITA believes that this new way of looking at the world can provide new insights into how the airport is functioning.

And HoloLens also opens the possibility of being able to access the AOCC environment from any location, on or offsite, allowing experts to provide input to situations remotely.

Peters added: “Mixed reality, which combines augmented and virtual reality, is more than a new interface, it is a new way of looking at the world and allows things to be done in a new way.

“It enables digital and physical data to exist together. Our early research shows that there are potential uses for airlines and airports  for operations, maintenance and training.

“We need to learn how to interact in this new environment. In the same way that we moved from computers to smartphones and voice recognition, now we can go beyond the screen.”

Greg Jones, Microsoft’s managing director of Worldwide hospitality and travel, said: “HoloLens is now being used across various enterprises from healthcare to engineering. SITA’s work is an example of how to extend HoloLens capabilities to manage the complexity of data and decision-making in an airport environment.

“It shows how this new technology can be harnessed for the air transport industry and add value in areas from training to complex operational management.”

The SITA Lab project interfaced into multiple data sources at Helsinki Airport to create the unique view of the ever-changing operations throughout the day. This included passenger real-time location and historic density data; aircraft position data; gate information; flight status information; security wait times and retail dwell times, segmented by passenger.

SITA Lab’s early research results show that unlike virtual reality, the mixed reality experience tends not to make people feel disorientated or nauseous. The HoloLens device itself has proven easy to learn and has a good battery life and doesn’t suffer from over-heating issues.

While the technology shows potential, SITA Lab points out it is early days and before enterprise use at airports issues of weight, size and durability will need to be addressed. Users must also learn how to interact in this new environment to maximise its benefits.

source : https://tinyurl.com/ybsuk688