Remote laser measurement optimizes air terminal operations

Carolina Gómez Mena

La Jornada Newspaper, Wednesday, July 16, 2025, p. 6

3D Lidar technology, a remote sensing system that uses laser light, is capable of optimizing the operation of airports, said Diego García de Paredes, Regional Sales Director of the Outsigh platform, which has tested this spatial artificial intelligence tool to measure the flow of people at airports in France, the United States, Spain, Rome, Cyprus, and Singapore.

At the Third Generation of Passenger Monitoring: Terminal Optimization conference, the entrepreneur asserted that without violating users' privacy, it is possible to measure the time they spend in lines for check-in, baggage claim, and access to stores in the terminals or taking taxis in those spaces, and thus take measures to, for example, reduce these waits or eliminate bottlenecks .

All of this can not only improve the service provided, but also generate savings for airports in various areas, such as knowing how much cleaning staff is needed based on passenger flow, among others.

The executive asserted that with the use of 3D Lidar technology, it is possible to accurately and anonymously track the flow of people from the curb to the boarding gate, optimizing terminal operations, reducing wait times, and improving the passenger experience.

García Paredes explained that they created Outsigh six years ago “with the vision that Lidar technology could go far beyond self-driving cars or iPhones (…) we have won many competitions and have been recognized by the aviation market, winning some of the innovation projects.”

He noted that they've already conducted a pilot at Guadalajara Airport, and they're interested, and in a few weeks we'll be rolling out the first functional deployment at an airport in Latin America . He declined to mention which one it would be.

Lidar emits pulses of light to scan what is around it, and it has been used for different sectors, but we have seen the possibility of scanning airports in three dimensions, in real time to provide spatial information .

This technology can also contribute to improving airport security and boosting sales for stores and restaurants in general, since if travelers spend less time in lines, they'll have more time to visit those areas. All of this data can be used at the commercial, human resources, and maintenance levels to determine whether cleaning is currently manual or, in the future, automated by robots , he predicted. In short, many departments will use it.

▲ Mexico reaffirmed its position as an international leader in educational technology after winning its second championship at the FIRST Robotics World Championship, held in Nagoya, Japan. The LamBot 3478 team, made up of students from the Prepa Tec Campus San Luis Potosí, led a strategic alliance that allowed them to win the title in one of the most demanding student competitions in the world. Photo taken from Facebook

La Jornada Newspaper, Wednesday, July 16, 2025, p. 6