Kansai International Airport, located near Osaka, Japan opened over 20 years ago and in recent years, overcrowding in the international terminal facilities has become a major issue, causing a need for a system of Person Tracking Sensors (PTS) to monitor traffic within the airport. The system, comprised of over 250 sensors, allows for real-time tracking of all persons in the airport without using facial authentication, allowing the airport to manage the flow of traffic in congested areas and operate more efficiently. However, long reach requirements, time constraints, minimizing downtime and business disruption posed significant barriers to the deployment of the new system.

The airport needed to better monitor the flow of traffic within the busy airport and planned to install a system of state-of-the-art Switzerland Xovis PTS. The implementation of the system posed many barriers to the 24-hour operation that services over 25 million customers per year. Each sensor covers a range of 100m2 and would need to be mounted into the ceiling. The topological layout of the airport posed a significant barrier to the project as the distance between the IDF closets where the network switches would be housed, and the many sensors, far exceeded the 100m range of standard Ethernet switches, and there was no way to install the switches any closer to the sensors. The customer needed a simplistic, robust solution to complete the deployment of the sensors while also ensuring a quick, cost-efficient and non-disruptive roll-out.

Reseller Nissho Electronics introduced NVT Phybridge Flex24 technology to decision makers at Kansai Airport. The Flex24 switch has the ability to deliver Ethernet and PoE++ over multiple pairs of UTP wire, up to distances of 2,000ft (610m) – six times farther than the reach of standard Ethernet switches. The Flex24 solution completely eliminated the complexities and frustrations of an infrastructure upgrade, and provided the flexibility to connect the sensors six times farther than standard Ethernet – with no extra IDF closets required along the way.

"Without Flex, we would have had to change the entire deployment plan. Thanks to the NVTP Flex solution, all of the sensors were installed by simply laying new CAT5 UTP wiring, allowing us to finish the project in a much shorter period of time and at a much lower cost,” said Yuji Taniguchi – IT Department Project Group, Kansai Airport Co., Ltd. According to Taniguchi, the airport was able to complete the installation in just three months, experiencing minimal disruption to their 24 hour operations, and save over $75,000 by utilising NVTP Flex24 technology.