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 The system was created by UK-based Moley Robotics, which aims to
develop a consumer version with an affordable price tag within two
years, supported by an iTunes-style library of recipes that can
downloaded for the robo-chef to cook in the home.
It features two fully articulated hands, made by the Shadow Robot
Company, whose products are used in the nuclear industry and by
NASA. The dextrous hands are able to faithfully reproduce the
movements of a human hand, cooking up Michelin-starred delicacies
with all the skill and flair of a master chef.
Key to the robot's kitchen prowess is the way its movements have
been 3D-mapped to those of professional chef Tim Anderson. To
transfer his knowledge into the machine, Anderson was recorded in a
special studio cooking while wearing motion-capture gloves. Every
motion, no matter how subtle, was captured by the motion-capture
technology; from the way Anderson stirred the liquids to the way he
controlled the temperature of the hob. His actions were then
translated into smooth digital movement using bespoke algorithms
developed by Moley in collaboration with Shadow and the Universities
of Stamford (USA) and SSSUP Pisa (Italy).
For the current demonstration, the team has mapped the exact
movements Anderson uses to make a crab bisque.
"If it can mimic my hands and any chef's hands, then with some work
on it there's no reason why it can't do just about anything;
kneading bread, making sushi - all these things that are very
hands-on, for lack of a better term. The scope of what it can do is
almost endless," said Anderson.
He added that, instead of putting their human counterparts out of
business, the robot chef could be an important tool for getting
recipes prepared in people's homes they way they intended them to
be.
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"I think that this is going to be an incredible tool for chefs,
especially chefs who want to have a wide audience for their food.
You can write a cook book, you can get recipes out there in
different ways, you can make ready meals and meal kits, things like
that. But this is a really good way of getting food into people's
homes in the way that you would want them to be prepared. And it
takes some of the guesswork out of things like people following
recipes."
Moley Robotics is now looking to develop a robot chef that can be
easily integrated into people's homes. Founder and inventor of the
robot chef, Mark Oleynik, said it's the human-like hands that make
the robot chef unique, and a crucial factor in establishing it as a
product that people want in their homes.
"The best way to make universal things; it's make it the way people
do it. Because people are universal things; everything they create,
they create by hand. So this was a key point of transferring their
human intelligence, and the product based on this," he said.
If the hands can be taught to cook, according to the designers,
there's no reason they couldn't play the piano, learn carpentry and
more. But the company's primary aim is to produce a technology that
addresses basic human needs and improves day-to-day quality of life.
"If you can make the right model, the robot does not make mistakes.
So it's fun for humans to make a creative process and keep the
boring process for the machine," said Oleynik.
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