The Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) hosted an LG product demonstration of the newly launched LG Cloi GuideBot, the company’s first multi-purpose customer service robot.
Through July 25, the CLOi GuideBot roamed DFW’s Terminal D (gates D1-D4) guiding travelers to points of interest throughout the gate area, as well as assisting with mobile ordering, displaying flight details, providing concession options and more.
The GuideBot provides customer service through wayfinding, displaying flight details, showing concession options and more by combining autonomous movement, AI, voice recognition and two 27-inch displays.
“DFW Airport’s goals for this project were to help decrease stress for customers while they are on their travel journey, provide a moment of wow and surprise them with an unexpected robotic assistant, while evaluating the ease of use and level of support needed from our employees,” said Ken Buchanan, executive vice president revenue management and customer experience at DFW Airport. “The LG CLOi GuideBot supplements our existing employee wayfinding resources and provides an opportunity to deliver another level of service to customers through innovative technology.”
The LG CLOi GuideBot is a multi-purpose customer service robot which is designed to provide wayfinding, enhanced security, advertising opportunities and valuable data on interaction times and usage. It is able to tackle complex user interactions like answering voice questions, accompanying guests to their destination, and displaying visual information about facilities and services.
The LG CLOi GuideBot stands just under five feet tall and greets everyone with a smile on a unique 9.2-inch LG LCD “face” display.
“The GuideBot can surprise and delight our customers by taking selfies, and even play a game with our smallest travelers,” said Jeffrey Weiland, B2B robotics team leader at LG Business Solutions USA.
The LG CLOi GuideBot is designed for use in small and large airports alike. Larger airports can deploy multiple robots to cover more ground across terminals.
The GuideBot is equipped with a high-quality microphone, 3D camera and 18 sensors including LiDAR (light detection and ranging), ToF (time of flight), magnetic, bumpers and IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit).
“Offering nine hours of operation and a quick five-hour charging time, this robot is a reliable assistant that can travel 2.2 miles per hour (1 m/s) to respond to changes in foot traffic or even physically guide individuals to their destination,” said Weiland. “The dual 27-inch LG touch screens, located on the front and back of the robot’s main body, provide bright, legible canvases for both interactive and static digital content, like menus, maps and videos.”
LG developed a cloud interface to enable fast creation of graphics and messages, including menu templates, background images and more. This allows the robot to deliver up-to-date on-screen and spoken announcements to keep travelers informed.
“The customizable functionality available in the LG CLOi GuideBot makes it ideal for airport operation,” said Weiland. “Whether it’s assisting with wayfinding, mobile ordering, displaying flight details and more, the GuideBot has a wide variety of functions that can improve travelers’ experience at the airport.”
The GuideBot is UL 3300 certified, meaning it’s for safe operation in complex commercial environments like airports.
By automating some repetitive tasks such as giving visitors simple directions, the LG CLOi GuideBot can free employees to handle more demanding tasks and provide more attentive service. CLOi could also be deployed to assist customers when changes occur like airport construction, delays and opening/closing of airport amenities.
DFW partnered with LG to digitally map the pilot environment after hours to prepare for the pilot launch. LG gave full content control to DFW using their intuitive user interface to test different images, URLs, and voice recognitions / responses.
To prepare, DFW had a soft-launch to test CLOi’s capabilities with customers to refine it and ensure it was ready for full customer use starting on July 1.
The GuideBot collects data on interaction time, advertisement playback time, number of uses, and more and all of it can be viewed in real-time or saved for review.
To measure the success of this product, DFW is analyzing data collected during the demonstration and conducting its own customer satisfaction observations.
“DFW welcomes over 70 million customers each year with 5 different terminals, and 169 gates. There are a wide range of different customer touchpoints and use cases that this technology could potentially be used for,” said Buchanan. “While DFW has not made any official decisions on further use or expansion of CLOi at this time, we have seen the potential value to our customers during this demonstration. We will be examining the data collected to determine next steps.”
Buchanan said that Overall, CLOi was widely liked by their customers.
“Everywhere they went, people were surprised and excited to see a robotic assistant to help them and would take pictures and videos of their experience,” said Buchanan. “How we could potentially translate that buzz and excitement into a reliable source of needed information will be examined after we evaluate the data. Robotics are everywhere and DFW is excited to explore potential uses in an airport environment.”
