Automation of Luggage Handling in Airports: Survey and the Simulation Environment

Many European airports faced a shortage of labour right after the COVID-19 crisis and are continuously struggling to meet the labour demand to match the growth of passenger traffic at the airports. In response to this shortage, airports are increasingly looking towards more autonomous solutions. While many elements of travel are now digitized, luggage handling remains a critical bottleneck as it requires the physical handling of heavy and irregular shape objects in real time. This paper presents the overall state-of-the-art of handling luggage, highlighting a number of efforts focused on its automation at the airports. The paper presents the first steps towards creating an open and realistic simulation environment of an airport luggage handling facility which can accelerate the development and validation of new automation solutions.