Robots are to roam South Korea’s largest airport this summer, helping travelers find their boarding gates and keeping its floors clean as the nation prepares for its first Winter Olympic Games.
Starting this month, Troika, a self-driving robot made by LG Electronics, is to rove Incheon International Airport, telling travelers how long it takes to get to boarding gates and escorting them to their flights.
A jumbo cleaning robot is to help cleaning staff swab the wide expanses of floors in the airport west of Seoul.
Photo: AP
Troika, about the size of a young teenager, is equipped with a rectangular display on its front that looks like a giant smartphone screen and can show flight information, an airport map and weather data.
Its partly rounded head has a flat touchscreen face that displays blinking or smiling eyes, or information.
The guiding bot responds to its name.
Travelers can insert their tickets into its scanner to get flight information and Troika will then ask if they want to be escorted to their gates, warning laggards: “Please stay closer so I can see you.”
Troika’s debut piqued the interest of many at the airport.
Heads swiveled and children approached with curiosity as the 140cm robot with its white body and black screens glided through the airport terminal.
Robotics is gaining ground in South Korea, where many big businesses are automating factory production lines.
South Korean researchers have won awards in international robot competitions.
In 2015, South Korea’s Team KAIST beat the US and Japan to win the DARPA Robotics Challenge with a humanoid that completed tasks without losing its balance, but South Korea has been slow to introduce human-like robots or interactive robots in public places such as hotels or stores, unlike neighboring Japan, where Softbank’s humanoid Pepper is no stranger.
Incheon International Airport Corp believes it is the first to introduce such service-oriented robots in a South Korean public space.
Another state-owned airport operator, Korea Airports Corp, which operates 15 international airports in South Korea, but not Incheon airport, has also teamed up with local companies to introduce air-purifying robots to measure air quality and clean terminals.
Incheon International Airport Corp said in a statement that it does not expect the robots to replace human workers, but just to help, especially with overnight shifts and physically demanding tasks.
Future plans include deploying robots to advise travelers about items that are banned on flights, serving food in airport lounges and carrying cargo.
South Korea expects the robots to burnish its reputation as a technology leader when the nation hosts mext year’s Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, but its maker LG is still working out the kinks.
Troika can recognize its location inside the airport terminal, and navigate around passersby and obstacles, said Kim Hyoung-rock, the chief research engineer at LG Electronics who oversaw the robot’s development.
It is meant to be a fast learner — by the end of this month Troika would be speaking English, Korean, Chinese and Japanese, Kim said.
However, the robot can only perform a few simple tasks it has been programmed to carry out.
During a test run it failed to recognize some voice commands, such as when Amethyst Ma of San Jose, California, asked how she and her children could catch a bus to the city.
Still, such machines could be quite useful for overseas travelers, Ma said.
“It’s becoming common in a lot of public places, so that’s why I came to it right away,” she said. “It’s a source of information, especially if we don’t speak the local language.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not