Eliminating Lost Luggage

Find out how Copenhagen Airport leveraged Vision AI and machine learning to increase their lost baggage re-location rate to over 98%, bringing a sense of ease to travelers from around the world.

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Customer

CPH Airport

Industry

Travel

3 key Challenges

#1

Increase lost baggage tracking and relocation rate to at least 95%.

#2

Leverage already stocked camera hardware. Track baggage even with some “blind spots.”

#3

Build a tracking system outside of the current centralized infrastructure in order to ensure easy maintenance and improvements.

Our Approach

The objective was to challenge the status quo in baggage handling systems, and provide support to already existing set-ups and processes, while making every day work tasks more efficient for CPH Airport staff. The three main roles that would benefit from acquiring a supporting baggage tracking system at CPH Airport are:

The Controller

The controller has no additional opportunity in the existing tracking system to correct faulty tracking.

The Operator

Their main objective is to redirect faulty tracking, reposition lost baggage at the conveyor belt and take action when baggage is misplaced.

The Passenger

This is the end-user who is ultimately affected by how the BHS works. The impact made by the BHS could either lead to a fantastic travel experience with the airport or induce a high level of stress for them.

How does it work?

It’s a three-step procedure involving a minimum of two cameras:

  • Camera 1 (registration) registers a piece of baggage
  • Database of possible baggage candidates is updated
  • Camera 2 (identification) calculates “best match” between available candidates for tracking

 

How does the system track bags between cameras?

The baggage is marked by Artificial Intelligence with rectangular boxes. In total, four AI models are involved in registering and identifying unique bags as either hard- or soft bags. When a bag passes the green vertical lines, a software event is triggered to capture the current video frame. Another machine learning model attaches a unique bag id to all bags, so they can be tracked while in the camera’s view.

Additionally, the orange box calculates the number of bags in the frame and creates a software event if more than one bag is present.

A fingerprint model creates a unique representation of a bag, ensuring that noise is reduced and important features are highlighted for later re-identification.

Impact

#1

CPH Airport will be able to re-identify/re-locate lost baggage with a rate of above 98% at camera locations – exceeding their requirement of 95%.

#2

Tracking in non-tracked zones with a rate of above 98%, and a system that can easily scale to more cameras if needed in the future.

#3

A non-invasive software platform planned to support the current Baggage Handling System.

“For this project, it was important for us to have a partner in crime who were experts in what they do – Machine Learning – and who could deliver effectively. That’s the reason we went with Trifork and we are very satisfied with the result.”

Kenneth Væversted

System specialist – Baggage Automation & Technology, CPH Airport

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