Late last month, Veovo – a company which creates technological solutions designed for a variety of use cases associated with airports and other transportation and crowd-oriented industries – announced the latest addition to their Intelligent Airport Platform. The company is now going to be integrating lidar into their products for the first time, strengthening their offerings around people flow management.
Veovo, based in London, England, indicates that the new lidar integrations will be used largely to strengthen their Flow Management platform, using the technology for both indoor and outdoor areas around the airport. They call out lidar’s ability to work in low-light conditions, as well as its anonymous nature, as reasons why it makes sense to track all of the different moving assets in an airport, including people of course, but also including things like luggage and vehicles. In their announcement of the news, they say the lidar will “seamlessly [integrate] with our cloud-based analytics platform and other sensors like 3D cameras and people cameras, forming a dynamic ecosystem.”
Veovo’s platform utilizes artificial intelligence and machine learning, and along with lidar utilizes things like tracking wifi-enabled devices, people counters, and cameras, all of which are more or less useful depending on the specific use case and environment. Using their Flow Management offering, they say, can help airport management companies reduce wait times using real-time and historical data, while also growing revenue and knowing where to prioritize changes and renovations.
Using lidar for tracking people and just assets moving through a space generally is certainly not a new use case – companies like Seoul Robotics and Outsight have been doing this for some time now – but it still feels like something that is not used as much as it could be. It stands to reason that such usage is only going to rise, and moves like the one being made here by Veovo should only become more commonplace.
As they allude to in their announcement, the anonymity afforded by lidar is a big point in its favor for these use cases. Today, people in public spaces expect as smooth an experience as possible, but are also wary of being tracked for privacy reasons. Both of these feelings are entirely valid, but it’s also easier said than done to achieve both with more traditional technologies. Companies can say they’re not storing any identifiable information captured with cameras, for example, but there will always be doubt in people’s minds. With lidar, those concerns don’t exist just because of the inherent properties of the technology. As with basically everything, it’s not to say lidar will solve all issues involved with crowd and flow tracking, but it’s certainly among the best options at our disposal today.
Veovo CEO James Williamson explained, “With Veovo, airports are no longer bound by hardware limitations. Now operators can choose the perfect mix of sensor technology including lidar, for their infrastructure, measurement, and budget needs. They can even incorporate their existing sensors to protect their investments.”
