3 Emirati students invent ‘Luggage Sorter’ for flyers

Abdulrahman Saeed, Staff Reporter

A team of three Emirati students at the Secondary School of Applied Technology in Abu Dhabi, Fatima Ahmed Hassan Al Hammadi, Dana Khalid Hamid Al Mazroui, and Maryam Mohammed Saud Saif Al Beloushi, invented a device called “Luggage Sorter,” designed to reduce congestion at airports, specifically at places designated to receive luggage.

The work team said small strips are affixed to the luggage to enable the traveller or user to track his bags through an application on the mobile phone connected to the device, showing the movements of the bags, and notifying the owner of the moment of its arrival, in order to limit travellers from touching other people’s bags in search of theirs, especially in the pandemic time.

The work team added that the device issues a card called ‘RFID,’ which is added to the bag upon check-in, and then as soon as the bags arrive on the conveyor belt at the destination airport, the baggage owner is notified of their location through the phone application connected to the device.

Fatima Al Hammadi said, “Many travellers at airports touch the bags on the conveyor belt in search of their luggage, and this is a big mistake in light of the coronavirus pandemic in various countries of the world.”

Dana Al Mazroui said, "Our idea is to invent an app which tells the traveller that his/ herbaggage reached the belt and he/she can pick them up. Using our device, when the bag passes through the belt which has the RFID reader, a notification is sent to the bags owner telling him that his bags are already there and he can take them."

Al Mazroui indicated that the device ensures that someone will not pick up another person’s bag by mistake, and it also helps reduce touching of bags to limit the spread of Corona virus.