Rockwell Collins were almost over-enthusiastic in the pursuit of us by its PR people. We don’t think of the firm for applications in the area of flight information, but two years ago, it bought Arinc Airports and in the last year and a half has added 23 new airports, as it boosted activity outside the US, so the company has solutions in 110 airports globally. The company has won recent deals in Cologne and Schoenefeld in Berlin for passenger processing and check-in.
Unlike Net Display, Rockwell Collins has espoused the cloud and has offered cloud-based hosting since 2012 and is aiming to have all its products available on that basis in the future.
We did stop by to get more about the firm’s AirVue digital signage software. It comes in three “flavours”. The first of this is a hosted service that can be supplied to support systems from a single screen upwards and is said to be quite popular with those that need to provide live data such as flight information, for example car rental companies and hotels. Moving up, the second level, AirVue Interactive includes features such as “3D mapping” (well, at least a 2D projection of a 3D space!) to help with wayfinding as well as providing special offers. This is offered either as a local or hosted service. The third flavour is a full featured FID system that is called, AirVue FIDs. There is also an integrated CMS system that can report data such as advertising play-out. AirVue Enterprise combines the FIDs product with other internet features.
The company is developing support for biometrics which can be helpful at, for example, check in. It expects to make an announcement about facial recognition with a major airport in 2016. The company has a “one to many” identity strategy that allows passengers whose face is recognised to move through security and immigration without the need to show passports or boarding passes. Fingerprint or iris recognition technology can also be supported.
