Science fiction is here

Science fiction is here: meet robots, that will serve you at the airports of the coronavirus era.

How to make a huge, crowded, public space, such as an airport, a safe, clean place from coronavirus and other viruses. There is only one answer: technology, technology, technology. Indeed, the largest and most technologically advanced airports in the world have already begun a significantly accelerated process of robotization under the roof of coronavirus. It will starts from robots that measure temperature and blood pressure, to robots that use ultraviolet rays to disinfect during the cleaning.

Currently, many airports in the world are concerned about one main question: how to make a large, crowded, public space such as an airport - safe and clean place from viruses such as the coronavirus.?

There is only one answer: technology, technology, technology. Robots.

Indeed, the world's largest and most technologically advanced, but not only airports, have already begun the process of faster robotization compared to the age preceding the pandemic. Of course, this is a great time for all these innovative technology startups to streamline the airport healthcare agenda - an agenda that is likely will grow up.

Let's start from our airport, Ben-Gurion airport, last week conducted the first pilot tests under the name “Corona Free”. That is, the airport serving departing and arriving passengers is subject to the guidelines of the  Israeli Ministry of Health. The tests, which were carried out on Thursday morning by two flights, the only ones departing that day, also included a disinfection robot developed by SIH Security, Cleaning and Services and constantly rotating in the terminal. A robot with a smiling face also knows how to stop when passengers passing nearby. According to Samuel Zakay, head of Ben-Gurion Airport, the antiseptics inside the robot are completely different from the materials used to clean Ben-Gurion Airport before a pandemic of Coronavirus.

A special disinfecting machine was installed at Hong Kong Airport, which disinfects the entire human body in 40 seconds. In addition, the reception was covered with antimicrobial material. At this stage, Ben Gurion Airport only installed transparent partitions for separation between employees and passengers, as well as hand antiseptics.

Other large, advanced Asian airports, which began to return to normal life and are updated earlier than the West world, airports such as Incheon in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, have begun to implement the “Digital Passenger with Contact-less Self-Service” system: under the heading “Covid-19 Free Airport ”.

Seoul Airport also has a robot making coffee. For more information and get know robots better at Seoul Airport, click on the link below and watch the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmfCOtvgne4&t=80s

At the Abu Dhabi princess airport, Etihad Airways, one of the world's leading airlines, launched in late April new self-service kiosks (in the future referred to as robots) that can measure the temperature, heart rate and blood pressure of passengers in order to detect symptoms of the disease without the need for an employee. Passengers with any symptoms of the illness are taken to medical stuff for additional tests. Scanning devices manufactured by the Australian company Alanium Automation are designed to be placed in 4 different places at the airport: at the check-in counter, baggage claim, security and immigration points.

Pittsburgh Airport, PA, USA has also recently announced a partnership with Carnegie Robotics, which will include stand-alone kiosks and stand-alone machines (robots), that will wash and disinfect the airport from bacteria using UVC.

The new Istanbul airport, in Turkey as launched only at last year, began to operate robots to serve millions of passengers passing through 143 gates. Blue robots are shaped like a smiling little boy or girl, and when they talk, their lips flicker, their eyes wink, and their hands move up and down. A touch screen mounted on the chest of the robot allows customers to contact the robot. Robot capabilities include displaying routes and the location of desks at the airport, flight schedule information and flight status information. “I look forward to new passengers at Istanbul Airport every day,” the robot will tell you when you contact him for help.

At London Heathrow Airport in UK, shortly before the lockdown of coronavirus, British Airways began operating a pair of robots to greet passengers arriving at the terminal and help them with directions to the check-in desk. 4-foot robots, named "Bill", were released at the busiest airport in the United kingdom, so that it was easier for passengers to navigate at the airport and not get lost. Both robots speaking several languages and can guide passengers to restaurants, check-in areas, coffee stores and services near to Terminal 5. Robots are designed to answer thousands of a basic questions that must unload the staff to help other customers.

One of the most experienced robots is located at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France which is a parking robot, it was started working almost 3 years ago. The robot, developed by Stanley Robotics, is a kind of forklift carrying a parking vehicle. After the passengers unloaded their luggage, they entered the terminal and confirmed that their car ready for parking. The Stan robot also operates at the French airport in Lyon, Lyon Saint-Exupery, and has recently also been commissioned at London Gatwick Airport.

It is also worth to note a TaxiBot from the IAI - Israel Aerospace Industries, which recently announced that due to the coronavirus, a robot that was designed to tow aircraft was also tested at Schiphol airports in Amsterdam, Netherlands and Bangalore, India. The purpose of this robot is to make the towing process more economical and effective - to maintain and optimize the needs of world aviation during the pandemic Era.

With the introduction of an increasing number of robots, the question arises of personal data  information of passengers stored in the airport databases. According to Dr. Alon Gelbman, Head of Tourism and Hospitality Management at Kineret Academic College, “In recent years, the trend towards switching to smart airports has been well developed around the world to better cope with the massive traffic of passengers at many airports around the world carrying millions of passengers a year, including at Ben Gurion Airport. Now technologies are being integrated and improved to solve the problems facing the Era of the coronavirus epidemic and to prevent the need to completely close in future cases of the epidemic, if any. It also raises serious ethical concerns about personal health information, which can become part of international databases, which in turn can affect people's freedom of movement as a result of the widespread assumption that public health is more important than an individual's right to privacy, one of the problems which may arise is the degree to which technology, no matter how innovative it may be, can accurately determine the destiny of people, while we all know that medical devices, there are limitations and errors that happens even in hospitals. Despite the fact that the technology offers an actual and efficient process, it seems that passengers will have to arrive much earlier before the flight (4 hours in the case of Ben Gurion Airport) due to the need for spacious passenger allocations, rather than tight traffic control at all verification steps. By distributing the number of people for a greater amount of time, thereby avoiding crowds and in those cases when additional health tests are required in insulated rooms specially allocated for this, and sometimes it even allows you to stop the process of boarding a person on a flight.

Of course innovations can’t skip around Hotels Industry: robots instead of administrators. The hotel industry is also expected to undergo an accelerated robotic process. In hotels, the program of “smart hotels” has been thought over for several years. It is more common among large hotel chains, the main reason for which is the desire to ensure sustainability and effectively manage energy and water supply systems with optimal use. Dr. Gelbman says at the moment: “All hotels are forced to apply the new health care rules, and they understand that technologies can be used for this target as well. But in hotels, the main problem is not necessarily technological, but a new culture of hospitality - managing the movement of guests, reducing contacts with staff and guests. This requires new thinking and different kind of organization. For example, a reception at a hotel without the need to visit the reception desk, management of eateries in hotel restaurants, subject to reservation for a certain known and pre-booked time, advance control of the traffic of pool users at a predetermined time. Hoteliers will need to make a lot of efforts and think carefully in order to properly take into account these parameters, while maintaining a pleasant, warm impression of hospitality, as guests expect - a rather difficult task facing hotels, but it is nothing impossible.

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