Barcelona | Visitors to ISE may have noticed Barcelona Airport’s newest F&B outlet, the robotic restaurant Self. This unmanned restaurant opened the weekend before the trade show, featuring a large Kuka robot, QSR order terminals, and large LED displays. Invidis tested the robot firsthand.
Barcelona airport has become invidis’ second home, with frequent trips to and from the ISE host city throughout the year. On a trip to Barcelona for ISE the weekend before the show, something new and digital caught my eye. Travel retail specialist Aeras had opened its first AI-enabled robotic restaurant in Terminal 1, next to Gate B24.
Branded as Self, the restaurant offers fast service and a wide variety of food and beverages across 137 m² of valuable terminal space. The highlight is a robot that prepares drinks and serves food. The menu includes coffees, premium sandwiches, juices, pastries, salads, pokes, desserts, soft drinks, and daily specials.
Hospitality operators are struggling to find enough staff, especially kitchen workers. The robotic restaurant is designed to ease the this burden for operators. For the launch, Aeras staffed the restaurant with a human team to assist customers with the digital signage order terminals and help retrieve orders.
Investment in innovation
Self is a concept designed to offer travelers an agile and efficient service. It uses a robotic arm with a claw and five tactile fingers to optimally manage and deliver orders. When customers gets to the restaurant, they select their products and pay at four order terminals, and are issued a ticket with a number and QR code. The robot prepares and organizes orders in trays to speed up delivery, notifying the customer on a digital signage screen when their order is ready for pickup. Additional staff is available to help in the dining room or with take-out orders.
The robotic restaurant can handle up to six orders at the same time and enables the non-kitchen human team to focus on providing guests with better and more personalized service. The concept restaurant is highly efficient at managing inventory and procurement, operating autonomously but in close collaboration with the team.
Advanced AI and a machine vision camera enable Self to learn and to make optimal decisions in real time, allowing it to “see” and adapt to the environment to improve service quality and speed.
The Self digital signage concept
A large digital menu board promotes special deals facing the main direction of travel. Details to available items are displayed on the order terminals – providing services in various languages. A large format display on the side facing arrival passengers is neatly integrated into the wooden facade. In general, Self architects – GAC 3000 and Espluga + associates – did a great job with integrating LED and digital signage screens into the modern design of the restaurant.
Self has been developed entirely by Spanish companies, including IJRRobótica and AEV, and in collaboration with tech partners such as Mastercard, AEV, Kuka, and ICG.
