City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has honoured one of its researchers for his work on a scheduling system designed to help ensure the smooth operation at Chek Lap Kok.
Dr Chun Hon-wai, associate professor at the Department of Electronic Engineering at CityU, was commissioned by the Airport Authority to design and develop a new stand allocation system to cope with the airport's dynamicchanges in operational needs and make efficient use of resources.
Dr Chun, Hong Kong's leading expert in scheduling and resources management systems, has managed numerous scheduling projects for the Mass Transit Railway Corporation and Hong Kong International Terminals.
As Chek Lap Kok is one of the world's busiest for both passengers and cargo, scheduling and managing all aircraft parking and ground movements is essential for it to handle 35 million passengers and three million tonnes of cargo annually.
Dr Chun spent four months developing the new stand allocation system which manages all aircraft arriving and departing from the airport.
It is a CORBA-compliant real-time 24x7 system with three-tiered client-server architecture and multi-user capabilities.
The system is used for planning and operations and provides dynamic reactive scheduling to cope with real- time changes such as flight delays, rotation changes, returns or weather diversions.