Munich Airport, Lufthansa starts trial test of humanoid lady robot

February 15, 2018: Breaking all hi-tech grounds, Munich Airport along with Lufthansa Airline kicked off first-ever test on ‘Josie Pepper’, a humanoid lady robot equipped with artificial intelligence.

The 120-centimeter tall humanoid robot, which is equipped with artificial intelligence, has been installed at the terminal-2 of Munich Airport.

The robot has been programmed in a way that it can sense any query by simply looking into the eyes of passenger, and promptly guiding them to their respective terminal gates, restaurants or cafeteria, in an affable voice.

Josie Pepper has been developed by leading French company, SoftBank Robotics. The lady robot was nicknamed ‘Josie’ by the staff of Munich Airport and Lufthansa. It has the combined technological backbone of IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT) cloud-based, and artificial intelligence.

In the next few weeks, Josie Pepper will greet travelers at the non-public area of Terminal 2, which is jointly operated by Munich Airport and Lufthansa.

During the trial phase, Josie Pepper, who speaks English, will be positioned for passengers at the top of the ramp, which leads to the shuttle, connecting the main terminal to the satellite building.

This test will be used to ascertain passenger response for Josie Pepper.

Josie Pepper’s brain is fitted with a high-performance processor connected to WLAN internet, which links to a cloud service, where speech is processed, decoded, and subsequently linked to the airport data.

When the robot speaks, it does not just throw pre-defined texts, but answers each query individually. Just like a human brain, the system is evolved over a period by combining questions with relevant information to deliver precise answers.