VÄN

Since the beginning of time, light has been a core element of human life. It regulates the living cycle for every breathing cell on the Earth as well as impacts mental and environmental mood. Yellow light is known to evoke a sense of warmth and peace, similar to the senses evoked in the presence of your loved ones.

Van means Friend in Swedish and vehical in English. Van is a friendly autonomous companion that improves the experience of a family with young kids at an airport. It creates a friendly distraction by playing with the kid while keeping an eye on him.

The UI of the robot consists of speakers and two touch-screens that have a camera and a microphone. Parents and children can talk to the robot or touch one of the screens in order to access any function. Through the interface, parents can be guided to their boarding gate, look for flight hours, call medical aid in case of an emergency, ask for their children back if they are playing far from them, and disable most of the touchscreens’ functions and only allow their children to talk to the robot. Children can call their parents, ask for help in case of emergency or just play with the robot. An on/off button is located in the lower part of each screen: parents can turn a screen on or off, depending on if they need both screens or only one. When not in use, the screens of the robot show two wide open eyes. When charging, the screen is off.

Vän can be fitted with optional friendly-shaped accessories. These accessories are very easy to put on the robot – parents just need to insert them in the slot on top of the robot. To remove them, simply press one of the two “push” buttons. Each accessory has two projectors – one on each side that show interactive games on the floor.

When parents go get the robot, it comes with bracelets that children wear. These bracelets are fitted with a RFID chip that make possible for the robot to track and follow them. If a child gets lost in the boarding area, the robot can easily find them thanks to that RFID chip in the bracelet.

Parents can download and install a special phone app linked with our robot assistant. In this app, they can book the robot in advance, enter data such as their name, scan the barcode of their boarding pass, pay for the service, set a zone in the boarding area in which their child is allowed to play, track the child and tell the robot to get them
back when it is time for boarding the plane.

Robots charge their battery wirelessly. They gather to a charging station that has platforms on which the robots rest and get charged. Each station has a totem with the Vän logo on it. There are two types of charging stations: a big one, with a big totem, that can fit up to 10 robots, for the entrance of the boarding area, showcasing Vän. A smaller version, with a smaller totem, that can fit 3 robots, placed in various
places of a huge boarding area, mostly close to the boarding gates. This kind of charging station has the purpose of making the robots immediately available to families and shortening the trip of a robot that needs to be charged.