First Robotics-Driven Airport Restaurant Uses Nsign.tv To Drive Customer Messaging

February 19, 2025 by Dave Haynes

The Barcelona-based CMS software and solutions firm nsign.tv now has a flashy reference case for existing and prospective customers – a food stall at the city’s main airport that has a robot working behind the counter.

The robotic-driven restaurant chain Self now has a mostly unmanned operation in Terminal 1, next to Gate B24. It is billed as the world’s first robotic restaurant with Artificial Intelligence in an airport. The restaurant offers packaged foods and pastries, and can prepare drinks. It is one of those single-arm bots that are very familiar now in manufacturing environments.

For the launch, our German content partners invidis reported that the operator staffed the restaurant with a human team, to assist customers with the order terminals and generally help out. That’s good, because the robots are not totally infallible. I watched the video and noticed at 34 seconds the item grabbed from the shelf went flying out of the mechanical grip of the robotic arm. You can the arm then serving up, in that case, nothing.

That’s the benefit of a human team on site, and the bot won’t be upset ‘cuz it knows it won’t get fired.

As invidis explains,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.

nsign.tv is driving the digital communications at the Self outlets, with its software active on more than 1,200 devices, with more deployments in the works.