Empowering Smart Airports with the Huawei Horizon Digital Platform

Lu Yong

President of the China Region & Senior Vice President, Huawei

Integration Is Fundamental for the Transportation Industry, at the Turning Point of Digital Transformation

With digital transformations well underway globally and across all industries — driven by ICT — the transportation industry in particular will witness explosive development over the next few years, having reached a turning point that will eventually define the overall success of its transformation.

Huawei continues to increase its strategic investment in the transportation industry, especially in the civil aviation sector. In June 2017, Huawei signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Shenzhen Airport Group, marking the beginning of Shenzhen’s smart airport digital transformation journey. In May 2020, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) and Huawei signed a strategic agreement, implementing the Action Outline for Building a Civil Aviation Power in the New Era together. The partnership combines Huawei's leading global talent and its technical strengths with CAAC's unique advantages in the industry. The cooperation will assist in developing smart civil aviation and help achieve high-quality development in the industry. It will promote stronger cooperation mechanisms, develop innovative collaboration methods, and expand the partnership ecosystem.

Huawei brings extensive knowledge and experiences to digital transformation

Together with diverse industry partners, Huawei has analyzed the challenges the aviation industry faces throughout the process of digital transformation. These include IT system silos, limited data sharing due to segregated data storage, and a lack of information integration caused by varying data standards. The comprehensive integration of technologies, data, and businesses is key in addressing these challenges, to effectively and efficiently accelerate digital transformation.

Implementing One Network for Security, One Map for Operations, and One-Stop Services Through Integration

Together with customers, Huawei is developing a digital foundation for smart airports, promoting cross-industry innovation, and building a new ecosystem based on ‘Huawei Inside’. Using the Huawei Horizon Digital Platform, Huawei integrates multiple technologies, including cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things (IoT), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) with its leading global ICT products and solutions. Meanwhile, data enablement allows scattered data to be integrated from multiple sources. Huawei additionally cooperates with its ecosystem partners to implement the "Platform + Ecosystem" strategy for business integration at the application layer. Ultimately, smart airports can achieve remarkable benefits for airport security management, operations, and passenger services, by enabling ‘One Network for Security, One Map for Operations, and One-Stop Services.’

One Map for Operations : The Huawei Horizon Digital Platform integrates big data, AI, an Integrated Communications Platform (ICP), video cloud, and other technologies, implementing a comprehensive approach that encompasses the full spectrum of airport processes, scenarios, and elements. For example, Huawei's intelligent stand allocation system has improved Shenzhen Airport’s bridge-to-aircraft docking rate by 5%. The system converges over 170 core data objects with more than 60 operation rules, and uses AI algorithm models to allocate stands intelligently and efficiently.

One-Stop Services: The Huawei Horizon Digital Platform integrates business data on public safety, passengers, airlines, and airports. The data is then used in the eight integrated business scenarios in terminals, providing convenient E2E travel experiences for passengers. Additionally, five online business scenarios are converged for airports to offer comprehensive, targeted services.

Building Future-Proof, Innovative, Smart, Scenario-Specific Applications with Ubiquitous Connectivity and Pervasive Intelligence

The development of innovative technologies, including 5G and AI, will have a profound impact on the digital transformation of airports and the civil aviation industry as a whole. Together with Shenzhen Airport and other partners, Huawei will continue to make further breakthroughs in the industry based on the digital foundation.

Network interconnection technologies, represented by 5G, will bring ubiquitous connectivity and interconnection between all digital elements. Users will be able to remotely manage people, vehicles, and objects at the airport, build an information superhighway, guide aircraft taxiing, achieve autonomous driving of apron vehicles, and intelligently control Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). This will lead to further integration of technological innovation in the civil aviation industry.

The rapid development of AI will drive pervasive intelligence. Shenzhen Airport has implemented intelligent stand allocation based on the Huawei Horizon Digital Platform. This significantly increases efficiency. However, the airport still needs to cope with issues caused by saturated airport operation resources. In the future, AI will digitalize resource allocation. The entire management and scheduling process of key support resources — from check-in desks and security check channels, to boarding gates, baggage carousels, and ground handling resources — will become intelligent.

Developing the Kunpeng Ecosystem and Building a Secure and Trustworthy Digital Foundation

The Huawei Horizon Digital Platform is the foundation of digital transformation. Its security and trustworthiness are critical to stable and efficient business development and smooth operations. In the future digital era, where computing is ubiquitous, a single computing architecture will be unable to satisfy diversified application scenarios and data processing requirements. By adhering to openness and cooperation, Huawei works with industry partners to develop the Kunpeng Ecosystem, to build a secure and trustworthy digital foundation together.

Accelerating Smart Airport Construction Using the Huawei Horizon Digital Platform

Digital transformation is inevitable. To stay ahead of the market, we must develop suitable strategies using systematic thinking and planning. We will need a vibrant team and a culture that embraces innovation — one that is open and enterprising. We must also stay on top of technology trends and implement a future-oriented approach, allowing for ongoing updates and iterations. Huawei will empower airports and help the civil aviation industry as a whole to accelerate digital transformation, by providing top-level design, sharing best practices , driving technological evolution, and helping to set standards and specifications.

Looking to the future, Huawei will cooperate with industry partners to drive digital transformation and work on the intelligent upgrade of the civil aviation industry. Indeed, we are actively contributing to the national strategy of building China into a civil aviation powerhouse.