We're in the heat of the summer travel season, and one of the biggest frustrations for those on vacation is the airport.
But biological researchers at the University of Florida want to make that experience better.
Airports have a lot of moving parts. And when one thing goes wrong, it creates a domino effect that can hurt a person's travel experience.
That according to Greg Kiker, an agricultural and biological engineer at the University of Florida, who is studying how to make the air travel experience better.
"What we're looking at is what causes these, these kind of interruptions, these shocks, and how do they cascade, especially within airport systems," Kiker said.
The study is a partnership with the National Science Foundation and Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.
They're using AI and and what's known as "digital twins" which are kind of like simulations. Think the video game you may have played Sim City for example. That's the game where you run and manage your own cities and protect it from natural disasters or crime.
So, in this UF study using AI, these simulations try to predict how certain decisions create this domino effect throughout the airport.
One simulation they're using at DFW is called "Athena"
"So that was actually used to plan construction events and trying to avoid when they close a terminal, how could they route or tell people, "Okay, if Terminal C is closed, could, how can we still route them to better places?" Kiker said.
And there's another digital twin named "Morpheus," which simulates lighting and energy efficiency.
"Light, temperature, even different like gases and noise were all integrated into that digital twin system to help them plan for, to make sure that when noise was getting too high, how they could mitigate that. If it was like a hot day, how could they change their smart glass settings to let in less energy so they wouldn't be as hot?" Kiker said.
And there are more simulations that deal with flights, food vendors and baggage. Now, you might be thinking, 'What do agricultural and biological engineers have to do with airports and AI?'
Well, Kiker said they have everything to do with it.
"You take away the energy, the water, people — do you still have an airport? Well, you might have a closed airport. And so what we found as we looked at it, and some people say, 'Ah, it's just, it's just concrete. It's just tarmac or it's just airplanes,' which are, you know, a part of another type of engineering. But actually, when you start to put together an airport, it has all the elements of an ecosystem," Kiker said.
From here they'd like more data their studies. Kiker said their hope is to find more partners to collaborate on the project — even airports overseas.