Robots and Cooking: What They Can Do Today

Today there are many discussions about how robots will replace people on workplaces. You can find a variety of information with approximate calculations of the percentage ratio of robots to humans in different areas, in the next 5-10 years. But, many robots have already successfully replaced people. In this post I suggest you look at what robots can do in cooking.

Koya and Kona

In Shanghai two robots named Koya and Kona are able to cook portion of ramen noodles in 90 seconds. The finished products coming out of the kitchen, and then the robots mix them in correct proportions according to the order. Robots determine the number of products for a portion using the weight sensors.

All the tools for the job (cutlery) must be located in certain places in order to robots can accurately do their job. ie in fact they are not yet able to fully navigate independently in the environment. Their value amounted to $ 150.000, this is the equivalent of the salary of two man-cook in 6 years. But the owner of the diner has increased the price of ramen in 2 times, and it only attracted more buyers.

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Suzumo machines

The company Suzumo in 1981 had produced the first robot which was able to wrap the rice in sheet of seaweed. This machine helped to significantly increase the speed of cooking sushi, freeing people from one of the most time-consuming processes. The modern model of this company is capable of producing 3200 servings of sushi rice in 1 hour- it's unattainable value for a human.

Suzumo actively improve their robots, in the market today there are about 30 models with different functionality. For example, an another machine is able to make 300 rolls for one hour. But still these devices are not functioning without the man who needs to add the ingredients and press the button.

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Marta and Bruno

Zume Pizza makes a serious bid for robotization. Today on their kitchen already working two robots: Marta and Bruno. Marta smears sauce on the dough (for 2 seconds), the pizza moves down the conveyor belt, where humans fill it with the right toppings, at the final stage of the process connects another robot – Bruno.

Marta specially configured to spread the sauce unevenly, like humans, so visually it is impossible to understand what's in the pizza creation was involved the robot.

At the moment it's only partial automation, but the company has big plans. Zume Pizza wants to cook pizza in a moving truck, which will be managed remotely. The van truck be equipped 52 ovens, and robots that will make pizza from scratch, from the calculation of time for delivery to the customer, In the end the customer get a fresh pizza.

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Bionic Bar

At Bionic Bar on Board the cruise ships of Royal Caribbean work two robots bartender. They are able to make any cocktail on request of customers, they can mix, shake and strain liquid according to the database of recipes in their memory.

They work with 30 types of alcohol and 28 types of non-alcoholic beverages, so the combination of cocktails is huge. The guest can choose the necessary drinks and proportions.

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Momentum Machines

Momentum Machines has patented a machine for the production of hamburgers. It's not just a robot, and a mini factory that can cook 400 burgers per hour. In fact, it supports the full cycle of production, after it loads the necessary ingredients.

You can customize the robot how you want, including the ratio of pork and beef in a cutlet. Ingredients are added in a strict order, the cheese melts at the right time, the bun is hot and the vegetables are fresh. According to recent tests, the machine can produce up to 95% of the burgers without errors.

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Noodlebot

Cui Renquan created his own robot Noodlebot. By 2012, the Creator has already sold 3,000 robots to different restaurants. After submitting the dough, the robot is able to slice 130 of the strips of noodles for 1 minute.

Cui Renquan didn't just invent the mechanical hands, but also gave the robot a human appearance, for not to scare off buyers. In the future he plans to add to the robot the function of the cooking dough.

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Moley Robotics

And here is the robot-chef with a database of 2,000 recipes. Moley Robotics promise to launch their offspring in the mass market this year. Two mechanical arms are able to cook with the speed of a professional chef, obeying commands from smartphone.

24 joints and 20 motors allowed the robot with accuracy to repeat the movements Tim Anderson, winner of the British cooking show MasterChef 2011. Motion chefs were pre-recorded on camera and uploaded to memory of the machine. The creators of the robot say that he can learn to interact with any appliances in the kitchen, enough to show him how it works. According to preliminary estimates the cost of the robot will be 20.000 pounds.

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Bratwurst Bot

Bratwurst Bot built using conventional parts of the industrial manipulator, connected via a flexible, adaptive software package. The robot is able to cook delicious sausages and always turns its at the right moment. The device also lays out the sausages on plates and fills the free space on the grill.

Robot chef interacts with people offline, to order use a tablet with a web interface.The client enters his name, which is added to the queue, the display shows the cooking time. To follow the process, Bratwurst Bot uses two cameras RGB and the segmentation algorithm with background subtraction.

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Of course, many of these robots perform basic functions and can't completely replace the human. But, these functions look elementary only for human, from the point of view of robotics, this is a serious steps towards creation of fully Autonomous systems, for which people will need just as a controller.

The main task of the robots it is not capture jobs, is the increasing productivity and freeing people from laborious and repetitive work. In addition, the robots not only take jobs, but create new ones, also in a large number: engineers, programmers, maintenance personnel, adjusters, operators of the remote management and support etc.

In the modern world, with the rapid development of technology, you cannot expect that you will work in one place until the end of life. If your work can be automated using a machine, it will, soon or later. The progress of technology requires human progress, we must continue learning. Thus robotics leads not only to increased productivity in all areas, but also serves as the engine to improve education in the General population.

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sources: Meet koya and kona, Suzumo, Zume pizzas robots, Everything you need know about the bionic bar, Momentum Machines is hiring, , Robots and kitchen, , Noodlebot taking over restaurant kitchens, Moley to present the worlds first robot-kitchen, Bratwurst-bot autonomously orders, cooks and serves sausage, images and gifs from Google search

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