Case Study: Maximizing Uptime for Flight Information Display Systems

Solution: ARK-DS762 - Go to eStore >

Shanghai Pudong International Airport has been China’s busiest airport ever since its Terminal 1 opened in 1999, later joined by Terminal 2 in 2008. The airport handles China’s largest volume of passenger traffic and the third largest air cargo volume in the world. Faced with such high traffic volume, Flight Information Display Systems (FIDS) deployed near important entrances, check-in counters, and boarding gates play a critical role for passengers. FIDS provides real-time information on flights, weather reports, transportation, airport services, etc., keeping passengers well informed with up-to-date travel information. Nick Wu, Sales Manager of Advantech China, pointed out that as of the Pudong Airport FIDS Upgrade Project at the end of 2013, passengers in Terminal 1 started enjoying the benefits of Advantech ARK-DS762 digital signage players.

Informationization of New Airports Drives FIDS Business
According to Nick Wu, there were a total of 183 civil airports in China in 2012, and that number should reach 247 by 2020, with a correspondingly strong demand for FIDS. This tremendous opportunity was confirmed in China’s 12th Five Year Plan, which defines the informationization of airports and harbors as a top interest of the country. The informationization of airports is particularly important because it is categorized as a nationwide public infrastructure development.

Advantech first ventured into China’s FIDS market in 2006, and has experienced substantial growth through subsequent years. As a result of years of diligent effort, many local hub airports have already installed Advantech’s digital signage platforms. Although statistics show that Advantech dominates88% of China’s FIDS business, the company continues to move forward aggressively. Now Advantech is expecting to increaseFIDS efficiency and customer satisfaction through ongoing system upgrades.

High Performance ARK-DS762 Meets High Standards
As an international airport, Pudong Airport is very demanding in terms of the specifications and aesthetic qualities of its digital signage platforms, which must fit well with the overall airport design. The success case at Pudong Airport is very significant to Advantech because other new airports are likely to follow in its footsteps. When Pudong Airport’s 5-year upgrade plan kicked off in 2013, Advantech won the FIDS upgrade project for Terminal 1, employing ARK-DS762 for its high-level integration and advanced performance.

ARK-DS762 is powered by 3rd generation Intel® Core™ i7 processors, featuring excellent computing performance and 3 HDMI independent display support. ARK-DS762 is very compact, measuring only the size of a notebook, and thus can easily be attached to the back of a display. Its modular design features VESA mount capability, allowing for easy installation and removal for maintenance without disturbing thescreens; this greatly accelerates installation and saves on costs for system integrators.Advantech’s ongoing supply to Pudong Airport has proved the high reliability of its products. Realizing that software integration is a major challenge during customers’ deployment, Advantech developed a dedicated signage software solution– USIAccess for Signage–torun on ARK-DS762.

SUSIAccess for Signage Software Makes FIDS Smarter
Preloaded in ARK-DS762, SUSIAccess for Signage is a software suite offering multiple functions including “content editing,” “signage management,” and “remote monitoring.” Its intuitive user interface enables easy, drag-and-drop content scheduling. Users can broadcast various content formats like video, web pages, and Flash from the control dashboard while updating content simply from a USB flash disk. Users can also accurately schedule playlists and configure playback settings for specific days and times with thegraphic calendar view. The software also supports amulti-language electronic marquee function.

With SUSIAccess for Signage built-in, ARK-DS762 can manage multiple devices, with immediate detection of malfunctions. Many problems can be solved using remote KVM, without engineers beingsent on site. This greatly reduces repair times because both problems and solutions are identified at an early stage. For FIDS applications, one big challenge for open information distribution systems is unauthorized content and message delivery. For this, ARK-DS762 integrates McAfee’s white list protection solution to prevent unauthorized content from entering the system.

Highly-integrated FIDS Solution Is the Key
“We have always made products that cater to our customers’ needs,” said Nick Wu, “We listen to and understand their requirements, and provide an optimized solution.” Thecombination of full-range services, complete product offerings, low product failure rate, best performance/cost make Advantech the best digital signage partner.

The informationization of China’s airports is taking place at full speed. The fact that modern airports act as hubs for passengers, cargo, money and information, result in an increasing demand for digital signage system upgrades. As this demand increases, Advantech will grow future business through continuous investment in hardware innovation as well as software integration. Advantech is now providing the “Application Ready Platform” solution that provides ready hardware and software signage solutions to help customers effectively shorten development time and focus on their own applications.