As witnessed at Sydney International Aiport, Air New Zealand is trialing a new robot check-in assistant.
The robot – complete with ‘face’ and ‘arms’ – takes passengers through check-in, inclusive of scanning passports and printing luggage tags.
Sources state the robot (a ‘Candrioid’ named ‘Chip’) was built in partnership with the Commonwealth Bank’s Innovation Lab.
The trial is set to last five days.
Air New Zealand may be offering a glimpse into the future, or perhaps even the integration of ‘lifelike’ robots into everyday life.
Tiziana Bianco from the Commonwealth Bank states:
“This experiment is a great example of why we invested in social robotics; working collaboratively with an innovative client like Air New Zealand, while also engaging some of the brilliant minds from UTS’ Centre for Artificial Intelligence”
“It is a wonderful opportunity to explore the possibilities of a horizon technology such as social robotics, and what it might enable in the future”.
Air New Zealand states it is also experimenting with other future integrations, including cabin crew utilising Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented reality viewers on board.
[Image: Rob Locke @FoodWineDine]