The Canadian start-up YPC Technologies developed the robotic chef using cobots - collaborative robots so that they can work alongside human chefs
The Canadian startup YPC Technologies, which defines itself as a pioneering robotics company in the field of food, announced the closing of an initial fundraising round in the amount of 1.8 million dollars and at the same time made an announcement that should be of interest to quite a few restaurant owners in the future after the eradication of the corona virus. According to the company, it has built the first robotic system in the world that can prepare thousands of recipes at the level of a chef's restaurant, using natural ingredients. The system, which is based on the use of cobots (collaborative robots) from the company Universal Robots, will not replace human workers, but will work alongside them, in order to optimize the tasks of preparing a variety of menus. The Toyota AI Ventures fund took part in the fundraising round.
"Our approach to robotic cooking has the potential to change the way food is prepared in restaurants today. The system will make it possible to significantly reduce quality food that is currently served in restaurants," he says Gunner Grass, CEO and founder of the company. YPC has already started the first sales, on a subscription basis, to a variety of industries, including restaurants, cafeterias and hotels. "The patent: a combination of advanced cooking systems with robotics and machine learning. The solution makes it possible to provide more hygienic meals during the epidemic, lower labor costs and reduce waste. Another advantage: unlike the space we need in a standard commercial kitchen, our robotic kitchen takes up very little space and can be easily moved.'
According to Ziv Sde, the VP of Marketing at S-PAD, the representative of Universal Robots in Israel, since the outbreak of the Corona there have been quite a few requests to examine the integration of cobots in industrial kitchens. "There is certainly enthusiasm in the professional media, when talking about what robotics combined with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can do for the restaurant industry... The artificial intelligence that the cobots are equipped with today already makes them much more than 'machines' that can do the jobs for humans The most 'dirty' and boring. Restaurant owners are pragmatic and goal-oriented people and they adopt and implement productive strategies in a way that aims to maximize their business results and always strive to optimize production procedures. This is also the reason why robots and collaborative robots (cobots) in particular will play an increasing role in this race.'
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At least according to the video she provided to the company - I would not recommend a sou chef to change professions. But I was very upset as an investor.
I haven't seen a single non-trivial operation. Just taking raw material and emptying the contents into a pot. Light years away from the vision.
There are quite a few companies in this field
I wonder if any of them will end up being really good for the home kitchen as well
It seems that it still has a significant long way to go to succeed
In any case, it seems more suitable for deliveries with a larger scope of activity than a restaurant for it to be economical, to be successful it should be economical to save a person's salary and to have a very high level of reliability that is 100% like a person,
Because a robotic failure in most cases requires treatment by a person with higher levels of knowledge than the person being replaced
It is hard to see how a restaurant manages to pay an automation person who understands both software and hardware
So we go to outsourcing, but it's also a problematic situation that it's 20:30 p.m. on Bogarshov Street, there's a crowd standing at the door and there's a robot failure and the service guy is just stuck in another restaurant... and since there's no cook who can replace him, the immediate stoppage of the restaurant isn't exactly a recipe for success... Another thing that can be added as a comparison of The economic side of the robots in some of the factories that introduce robotics, for example, the robot will replace about 2-3 people in one shift when loading onto the platform, and in a factory that works 3 shifts a day, this will be equivalent to 9 people a day, and in some cases there will be several lines, and all of this is backed up by automation maintenance people, electricians, and even then there are cases that order People from the outside to solve difficult problems, and there are difficult problems, see the article Elon Musk and Creature from Hell where the inability to perform reliable automation in production lines almost caused them to go bankrupt, they had to recruit workers in areas where robotics could not provide a reliable solution,
What you can see in the video is that you have to prepare everything for the robot in a precise place, its ability to react to a dynamic change in its environment is very low to non-existent, at least that's how it is seen in the video, what it does is move in XYZ space
to precise points of reference and performs a number of pre-programmed actions, any deviation in space will lead to an immediate failure,
In general what we call robotics (the robotic hand) sometimes it is perhaps more of a component of robotics because it can only work on a fixed set of commands without being able to respond to dynamic changes in the field, we see the buds of robotics in places where there is a camera that detects objects that are located in different places in space and in different orientations for example on film the creature and the robotic hand is able to approach and pick them up,
The big change in the field of automation will happen as soon as Chevrv creates a humanoid robot (like Boston Dynamics)
that can operate in a human environment the robot like a person can operate in different work environments the advantage that the company will produce the generic robot and in fact its structure will be adapted to the human environment the only thing that will be different between robot and robot is the software that will run on it this will reduce the production costs of the robot but it will always be Expensive because it will be a complicated machine, but there may be companies that will rent such robots and provide service for them, so when you open a restaurant, you rent from them a robot with a very high level of reliability, the reason for this reliability is that they produce exactly the same robot, and the work environment for it is incompatible, in most of the robots They include a peripheral system that does not sometimes fall into a complication from the robot itself and all this to bring the spoiled robot the component exactly in the way he likes otherwise it stops at best and in failure there can be some particularly unpleasant things with the largest among them with superhuman powers,
In any case, in the event that there is a robotic failure in the humanoid robot, they can bring another one and just download the software for the cook and the dishwasher and the floor cleaner in one moment, something that is not possible with robots, which have to be precisely positioned in space and fixed to the floor, but we are still far from that place, something like at least 15 years or more
Another proof of realization step by step
What was determined by the well-known futurist over eight hundred years ago
And at the same time there will be no hunger, no war, no jealousy and competition, that goodness will be greatly influenced and all the delicacies are fine as dust, and there will be no concern for the whole world except to know God alone