Robots

Cooking robot

A few days ago, the world’s first fully systematically operated robot restaurant opened in Guangzhou. A series of robots independently developed by Qianxi Robot Catering Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Country Garden Group, appeared in the restaurant and attracted great attention. Everyone is hoping to try it. While tasting the skills of robots, I am even more curious about how robots can handle complex Chinese food that is difficult for many people to manage to a level that can be opened. According to industry insiders, after the artificial intelligence boom, service robots used in catering, medical and other life fields will become a new hot spot.

By Liu Liqin, All Media Reporter, Guangzhou Daily

Photo, video/Guangzhou Daily full media reporter Su Junjie

The complexity of Chinese cooking makes the cooking skill good enough to become a capital to show off. In the Robot Restaurant, the main Cantonese cuisine is the well-known Shunde cuisine. Lin Chaodai, president of the Shunde Chefs Association, said in an interview with reporters from all media that robots can score 90 points for dishes.

How does the robot master the cooking skills? According to Yan Weixin, deputy general manager of Qianxi Robotic Catering Group and Dean of Qianxi Research Institute, there are currently more than 300 technical patents for robotic catering, which are mainly based on the standardization and digitization of Chinese dishes. It can provide a variety of catering services including but not limited to Chinese food, fast food, hot pot, claypot rice, noodles, noodles, etc.

It is reported that the process of allowing robots to learn cooking skills is generally recorded through video recording and thermal imaging cameras, extracting and capturing the chef's movements, knowing the amplitude, angle, speed, acceleration of the entire movement, setting parameters, and then applying heat The field controls the heating conditions under the same time flow. To obtain these data, you need to choose a representative chef. Well-known chefs in the industry are recognized for their products and have a certain reputation. By learning the movements and skills of the chef, the robot is equivalent to becoming the chef’s "apprentice" ". Through the deconstruction of technology, the robot can learn the "unique secret" of the chef, and through parameter constraints, the robot can also create new flavors and dishes through the free combination of data. It is understood that a successful dish needs thousands of tests. For example, stir-fried cabbage core has undergone more than two thousand tests and experiments. It can be seen that the test has five links, including the incoming material link. It is necessary to find the optimal plan for the position and length of the different cabbage cores, to test the best plan for the combination of the main ingredients and seasonings, and which method should be used in the cooking process. , Cooking time, main ingredients, auxiliary ingredients, and seasonings are placed in the cooking process. It is a very complicated process to input these test data to find the optimal solution. And this also shows the direction of the development of service robot technology, that is, the entire industry chain is standardized, and the standardization of materials, cutting, transportation, feeding, cooking, and human-computer interaction is required to ensure the efficient operation of robot restaurants.