The Great Sixth Reich
28-11-2004, 15:48
IC:
Today the new baggage handling system was revealed to the press at Hienkel City International's main Lufthansa concourse (Concourse 3).
Press Release:
This new system allows airport planners to design airports of larger size, using narrow corridors and tunnels for baggage where no tug and cart system can run. Furthermore, it requires none of the manual labor personnel, and can be used as easily in pinpointing the location of baggage as in moving it. The design truly fits its description as the world's most advanced baggage handling system. It is intended to run faster and more reliable than traditional technology. Its automation is so thorough, that in most cases, baggage offloaded from an aircraft doesn't see a human until it meets with its owner at the baggage claim. The system's speed outperforms even the airport's high speed trains. Flyers never have to hover around the baggage terminal waiting for their baggage as with traditional systems, because their baggage arrives at the claim before they do. On departure, their baggage arrives at the aircraft before they do.
Other Automated Baggage Systems
While the automated baggage system design of Hienkel City International Airport is unique in complexity, technology, and capacity, it is not the world's first such system. The three other airports that have such systems are San Francisco International Airport, Rhein-Main International Airport in Frankfurt, and Franz Joseph Strauss Airport in Munich. The major distinctions that separate Hienkel City's design are size and complexity. While Hienkel City's design is integrated to sort baggage from all airlines throughout the whole airport and deliver over a thousand bags per minute, the other airports use systems that are localized to much smaller baggage loops and offer less capacity. San Francisco's system is ten times smaller and handles fourteen times less in speed and capacity. The system in Frankfurt runs on trays and conveyor belts rather than Hienkel City's high speed telecars and is three times smaller in size. Munich's automated design is similar to Hienkel City's but far less complex.
High Speed
Hienkel City's baggage system design calls for replacing the traditional slow conveyor belts with telecars that roll freely on underground tracks at more than three times the speed. A telecar that is loading baggage rolls at 4.5 miles per hour. A telecar that is unloading its baggage rolls at 8.5 miles per hour. A telecar in transit rolls at a fast 19 miles per hour. Each track can handle 60 telecars per minute. It is the combination of using Hienkel City International Airport's underground tunnel network and swift speeds that allows all baggage to move between any concourse and the airport terminal in less than nine minutes. In United's concourse B, transfer baggage moves between any two gates in under six minutes. According to Airport Authorities, the system's high speed nature is intended to shave minutes off the turnaround time of each arriving or departing flight.
Components
The design includes a number of high-tech components. It calls for 300 486-class computers distributed in eight control rooms, a Raima Corp. database running on a Netframe Systems fault-tolerant NF250 server, a high-speed fiber-optic ethernet network, 14 million feet of wiring, 56 laser arrays, 400 frequency readers, 22 miles of track, 6 miles of conveyor belts, 3,100 standard telecars, 450 oversized telecars, 10,000 motors, and 92 PLCs to control motors and track switches. With so much equipment serving such a large area, the Hienkel City International Airport's baggage system is the world's largest. The system's total cost is $500 M dollars for the entire airport.
Baggage Handling Process
Because of the revolutionary automated baggage system, the process of handling baggage is unique at Hienkel City International Airport. At check-in, agents stick glue-backed bar code labels on baggage, identifying the bag's owner, flight number, final destination, and intermediate connections and airlines. The check-in agent then puts the bag on a conveyor belt. Since no baggage can move without a telecar holding it, a system exists for dealing with telecar allocation. Empty car management software is the heart of the allocation system, dispatching empty telecars to where the tracking computers anticipate they will be needed. The computers sense changes in demand by measuring the flow of passengers throughout the airport. During peak times, all 3,550 telecars are available for moving baggage.
When an empty telecar arrives, the conveyor belt holding the bag advances. Then a type of high-speed luggage bowling machine flings the bag at a T-intersection just as the telecar moves by, catching the bag in its fiberglass tray. Each telecar has a tray for this purpose that tilts into three positions for automatically loading, carrying, and unloading its baggage. In Hienkel City International Airport's system, telecars do not stop for loading or unloading, they only slow. This type of "Dynamic loading" increases handling capacity and saves energy as well. Before the telecar speeds away, a laser scanner similar to those used in grocery stores reads the bar code tag on the bag's handle and associates the bag with its telecar. These laser scanners are triggered by photo-electric sensors that detect a telecar's presence. Telecars pass photo-electric sensors every 150 to 200 feet of track.
The computer that scans the bar code tags then sends information to a sortation computer that translates it by using a look up table to match the flight number with the appropriate gate. A tracking computer guides the telecar to its destination by communicating with the hockey puck-sized radio transponders mounted on the side of each telecar. The telecars are able to move on the tracks by linear induction motors, or LIMs, which are mounted periodically on the tracks, and push the telecars along. A metal fin on the bottom of each telecar slides through each induction motor gaining impulse as it goes. Telecars merge with other telecar traffic and exit to unload stations by computers which control PLCs, or programmable logic controllers. The computer tracking a specific telecar directs it by communicating with PLCs that are responsible for causing track switches.
Tracking Baggage
As the telecars roll, the tracking computers monitor each of the system's thousands of radio transponderswhich emit millions of messages per second. The computers must also track all gate assignments so that the telecars can be re-routed if a change is made. The tracking computers can also re-route bags to special inspection stations, all of which can be bomb proof. The same computers must keep track of obstructions or failures as well, so that telecars can automatically detour around a stalled vehicle or jammed track.
Oversized Baggage
In addition to standard-sized baggage, the system can also accommodate nonstandard-sized baggage on oversized telecars that measure 6.5 feet long by 4 feet wide. The oversized telecars are essentially double-length standard telecars. They are meant for non-standard size baggage which in Hienkel City typically tends to be golf bags. The oversized telecars navigate through twists, turns, and switches the same way the standard telecars do.
Security
Impressingly, the system can work in full capacity for 18 hours every day at a 99.5 percent efficiency rate. Two counter-circulating closed-loop tracks with multiple routing connections provide for future expansion and add redundancy to guard against unanticipated problems. To protect against malice that could theoretically shut down the whole airport by halting the flow of baggage, tight computer security is built into the baggage system. The system has strict access privileges for workers, and its command center is well guarded and locked behind steel doors. The entire automated baggage system is run by HCY's information systems staff of 1,000 employees.
Object-Oriented Architecture
Fortunately, the automated baggage handling system illustrates the principle of object oriented design beautifully. It sends messages to objects (the telecars), which respond by returning other objects (baggage and empty telecars) to the sender. Its real-time software was programmed in OS/2 and intended to run on OS/2 version 2.0. Decentralized computing allows the baggage system to operate independently of the airport's information systems department. The only dependence within the system involves coordination with the airlines' flight reservation and information systems.
Latter that day:
Chaos:
Faults throughout the entire baggage system destroyed bags and flung suitcases out of telecars. The next day, phrases like "bags were literally chewed up," and "clothing and other personal belongings flying through the air" hit newspapers. Telecars jumped tracks and crashed into each other. Suitcases went flying like popcorn kernels, some of them breaking in half, spewing underwear in every direction. When the telecars crashed into one another they bent rails and disgorged clothing from suitcases. Others jammed or mysteriously failed to appear when summoned. Telecars crashed into each other especially frequently at intersections. Many dumped their baggage off at the wrong place. Some telecars became jammed by the very clothing they were carrying. As the telecars flung their bags off or ripped them open, the clothing clogged the telecar rails, halting traffic and crashing other telecars in back. Most telecars holding bags with unreadable bar codes were routed to holding stations. Other telecars that knew were they were going collided with telecars that couldn't remember.
Anybody have any suggestions? :)
OOC: This is somewhat based upon the Denver Baggage Crisis of 1993.
http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~dstearns/SchlohProject/problems.html
Today the new baggage handling system was revealed to the press at Hienkel City International's main Lufthansa concourse (Concourse 3).
Press Release:
This new system allows airport planners to design airports of larger size, using narrow corridors and tunnels for baggage where no tug and cart system can run. Furthermore, it requires none of the manual labor personnel, and can be used as easily in pinpointing the location of baggage as in moving it. The design truly fits its description as the world's most advanced baggage handling system. It is intended to run faster and more reliable than traditional technology. Its automation is so thorough, that in most cases, baggage offloaded from an aircraft doesn't see a human until it meets with its owner at the baggage claim. The system's speed outperforms even the airport's high speed trains. Flyers never have to hover around the baggage terminal waiting for their baggage as with traditional systems, because their baggage arrives at the claim before they do. On departure, their baggage arrives at the aircraft before they do.
Other Automated Baggage Systems
While the automated baggage system design of Hienkel City International Airport is unique in complexity, technology, and capacity, it is not the world's first such system. The three other airports that have such systems are San Francisco International Airport, Rhein-Main International Airport in Frankfurt, and Franz Joseph Strauss Airport in Munich. The major distinctions that separate Hienkel City's design are size and complexity. While Hienkel City's design is integrated to sort baggage from all airlines throughout the whole airport and deliver over a thousand bags per minute, the other airports use systems that are localized to much smaller baggage loops and offer less capacity. San Francisco's system is ten times smaller and handles fourteen times less in speed and capacity. The system in Frankfurt runs on trays and conveyor belts rather than Hienkel City's high speed telecars and is three times smaller in size. Munich's automated design is similar to Hienkel City's but far less complex.
High Speed
Hienkel City's baggage system design calls for replacing the traditional slow conveyor belts with telecars that roll freely on underground tracks at more than three times the speed. A telecar that is loading baggage rolls at 4.5 miles per hour. A telecar that is unloading its baggage rolls at 8.5 miles per hour. A telecar in transit rolls at a fast 19 miles per hour. Each track can handle 60 telecars per minute. It is the combination of using Hienkel City International Airport's underground tunnel network and swift speeds that allows all baggage to move between any concourse and the airport terminal in less than nine minutes. In United's concourse B, transfer baggage moves between any two gates in under six minutes. According to Airport Authorities, the system's high speed nature is intended to shave minutes off the turnaround time of each arriving or departing flight.
Components
The design includes a number of high-tech components. It calls for 300 486-class computers distributed in eight control rooms, a Raima Corp. database running on a Netframe Systems fault-tolerant NF250 server, a high-speed fiber-optic ethernet network, 14 million feet of wiring, 56 laser arrays, 400 frequency readers, 22 miles of track, 6 miles of conveyor belts, 3,100 standard telecars, 450 oversized telecars, 10,000 motors, and 92 PLCs to control motors and track switches. With so much equipment serving such a large area, the Hienkel City International Airport's baggage system is the world's largest. The system's total cost is $500 M dollars for the entire airport.
Baggage Handling Process
Because of the revolutionary automated baggage system, the process of handling baggage is unique at Hienkel City International Airport. At check-in, agents stick glue-backed bar code labels on baggage, identifying the bag's owner, flight number, final destination, and intermediate connections and airlines. The check-in agent then puts the bag on a conveyor belt. Since no baggage can move without a telecar holding it, a system exists for dealing with telecar allocation. Empty car management software is the heart of the allocation system, dispatching empty telecars to where the tracking computers anticipate they will be needed. The computers sense changes in demand by measuring the flow of passengers throughout the airport. During peak times, all 3,550 telecars are available for moving baggage.
When an empty telecar arrives, the conveyor belt holding the bag advances. Then a type of high-speed luggage bowling machine flings the bag at a T-intersection just as the telecar moves by, catching the bag in its fiberglass tray. Each telecar has a tray for this purpose that tilts into three positions for automatically loading, carrying, and unloading its baggage. In Hienkel City International Airport's system, telecars do not stop for loading or unloading, they only slow. This type of "Dynamic loading" increases handling capacity and saves energy as well. Before the telecar speeds away, a laser scanner similar to those used in grocery stores reads the bar code tag on the bag's handle and associates the bag with its telecar. These laser scanners are triggered by photo-electric sensors that detect a telecar's presence. Telecars pass photo-electric sensors every 150 to 200 feet of track.
The computer that scans the bar code tags then sends information to a sortation computer that translates it by using a look up table to match the flight number with the appropriate gate. A tracking computer guides the telecar to its destination by communicating with the hockey puck-sized radio transponders mounted on the side of each telecar. The telecars are able to move on the tracks by linear induction motors, or LIMs, which are mounted periodically on the tracks, and push the telecars along. A metal fin on the bottom of each telecar slides through each induction motor gaining impulse as it goes. Telecars merge with other telecar traffic and exit to unload stations by computers which control PLCs, or programmable logic controllers. The computer tracking a specific telecar directs it by communicating with PLCs that are responsible for causing track switches.
Tracking Baggage
As the telecars roll, the tracking computers monitor each of the system's thousands of radio transponderswhich emit millions of messages per second. The computers must also track all gate assignments so that the telecars can be re-routed if a change is made. The tracking computers can also re-route bags to special inspection stations, all of which can be bomb proof. The same computers must keep track of obstructions or failures as well, so that telecars can automatically detour around a stalled vehicle or jammed track.
Oversized Baggage
In addition to standard-sized baggage, the system can also accommodate nonstandard-sized baggage on oversized telecars that measure 6.5 feet long by 4 feet wide. The oversized telecars are essentially double-length standard telecars. They are meant for non-standard size baggage which in Hienkel City typically tends to be golf bags. The oversized telecars navigate through twists, turns, and switches the same way the standard telecars do.
Security
Impressingly, the system can work in full capacity for 18 hours every day at a 99.5 percent efficiency rate. Two counter-circulating closed-loop tracks with multiple routing connections provide for future expansion and add redundancy to guard against unanticipated problems. To protect against malice that could theoretically shut down the whole airport by halting the flow of baggage, tight computer security is built into the baggage system. The system has strict access privileges for workers, and its command center is well guarded and locked behind steel doors. The entire automated baggage system is run by HCY's information systems staff of 1,000 employees.
Object-Oriented Architecture
Fortunately, the automated baggage handling system illustrates the principle of object oriented design beautifully. It sends messages to objects (the telecars), which respond by returning other objects (baggage and empty telecars) to the sender. Its real-time software was programmed in OS/2 and intended to run on OS/2 version 2.0. Decentralized computing allows the baggage system to operate independently of the airport's information systems department. The only dependence within the system involves coordination with the airlines' flight reservation and information systems.
Latter that day:
Chaos:
Faults throughout the entire baggage system destroyed bags and flung suitcases out of telecars. The next day, phrases like "bags were literally chewed up," and "clothing and other personal belongings flying through the air" hit newspapers. Telecars jumped tracks and crashed into each other. Suitcases went flying like popcorn kernels, some of them breaking in half, spewing underwear in every direction. When the telecars crashed into one another they bent rails and disgorged clothing from suitcases. Others jammed or mysteriously failed to appear when summoned. Telecars crashed into each other especially frequently at intersections. Many dumped their baggage off at the wrong place. Some telecars became jammed by the very clothing they were carrying. As the telecars flung their bags off or ripped them open, the clothing clogged the telecar rails, halting traffic and crashing other telecars in back. Most telecars holding bags with unreadable bar codes were routed to holding stations. Other telecars that knew were they were going collided with telecars that couldn't remember.
Anybody have any suggestions? :)
OOC: This is somewhat based upon the Denver Baggage Crisis of 1993.
http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~dstearns/SchlohProject/problems.html