The Next Generation of Robot Kitchen Assistants Are Here
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The robots are coming! We've been hearing that cry for some time now and it's been causing waves of excitement and concern throughout global industry. However, the robots are no longer coming, they're here, and they're transforming the way brands serve their customers.
In its 2019 annual world robotics report, The International Federation of Robotics announced that global sales of industrial robots hit a record $16.5 billion in 2018 — an increase of 6% on the previous year. And, while numbers didn't quite hit those same dizzying heights in 2019, an average growth of 12% is expected per year between 2020 and 2022.
"The US-China trade conflict imposes uncertainty to the global economy — customers tend to postpone investments," said president of the IFR, Junji Tsuda. "But it is exciting that the mark of 400,000 robot installations per year has been passed for the first time. The IFR's longer term outlook shows that the ongoing automation trend and continued technical improvements will result in double digit growth — with an estimate of about 584,000 units in 2022."
One sector which has seen great promise in robots is the restaurant business and we have recently witnessed a new generation of these amazing machines come to the forefront.
Miso Robotics
Recent research has found that nearly three quarters of food service worker roles have the potential for automation. However, far from seeing machines replace humans, Miso Robotics envisages a future where robot kitchen assistants are just that — assistants — working with their flesh and blood counterparts instead of displacing them.
Miso's previous innovation — Flippy — caused quite a stir a few years ago. The ground-mounted unit was able to cook burgers and knew — thanks to a range of sensors — when the perfect time to flip the patty was. However, one aspect of the flippy device Miso wasn't satisfied with was the fact it couldn't move and had to be installed in front of the grill it would operate.
To combat this problem, Miso has recently announced its latest robotic kitchen assistant. Named the Miso Robot on a Rail (ROAR), the new device takes the flippy concept and evolves it into a cost-efficient and next-generation robot kitchen assistant solution.
ROAR is expected to start shipping towards the end of 2020 and costs a paltry $30,000, which is half the cost of its predecessor. ROAR is installed either on the floor or under the kitchen hood and, thanks to its on-rails design, can operate two cooking stations and engage with a cold storage hopper. Thanks to improvements to MISO AI — the company's proprietary software platform — the ROAR machine has a significantly expanded number of cookable food categories which includes chicken tenders, chicken wings, tater tots, French fries and waffle fries, cheese sticks, potato wedges, corn dogs, popcorn shrimp and popcorn chicken, and onion rings.
"It was incredible to see the efficiency with which the team adapted Flippy to a rail," said Miso Robotics Cofounder and CTO, Dr. Ryan Sinnet, who added that his team is working to cut the price of ROAR in half by lowering the cost of the hardware. "In my mind, that validated the software platform approach we took in designing Flippy's brain."
ROAR is able to cook hundreds of orders an hour and can obtain frozen food and cook it without assistance. It alerts human workers when an order is ready for collection and can even carry out tasks such as scraping grills, draining excess fry oil, and skimming oil between frying as it recognizes and monitors items like baskets and burger patties in real time. ROAR also ties directly into the POS system and can accept and prioritize orders appropriately.
Robot Kitchens
The potential for robot kitchen assistants extends beyond burgers and fries, however. Samsung has been busy developing a new machine which has been tested working alongside Michelin starred chefs.
Revealed at a Berlin tech show, Samsung's Bot Chef acts as a sous chef and consists of two arms which hang down from the ceiling. The chefs handle the lion's share of the work, but the Bot Chef can stir the pot, add seasoning such as salt, and even hold out a spoon so the professionals can taste the food.
The resultant dish — salt cod with beurre blanc — was apparently delicious, and Samsung states that the idea is for the Bot Chef to handle all the "boring" stuff so the human chefs can focus on the more creative elements of their trade.
Robotics are set to be a hot topic at Future Restaurants 2020, taking place in August at the Hilton Austin, TX.
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