How do we have automated robots that do extreme precision engineering, but there are still no cooking robots in restaurants?
In: Engineering
Chefs in Finland are paid 12 euros an hour for example. Gotta be pretty cheap and reliable robot to beat that
When I worked at McDonald’s, we used plenty of robots. Robots measured the fry oil contaminants and told us when to drain and clean it. Robots knew to cook different burgers at different compression levels and for different amounts of time. Robots made the milkshakes and frappes by mixing the right ingredients and blending them together.
What you are really asking here, is what is the difference between machines and robots?
All those robots at McDonald’s might be better labeled as “machines” instead. Do they have a need for something that seems more like a robot?
There are cooking robots in factories for prepackaged foods, where there’s much higher volume, and less variation. It’s a lot easier to build an automated line to make 100k of the same product a day than to make a few hundred each of 10 different products a day.
For example, the hamburger buns at your burger place were likely baked in an automated factory with a tunnel oven. I haven’t been to any restaurants that have that much room for an oven, or that need that many hamburger buns in a day.
Also, how would a cooking robot handle modified orders (extra cheese, no onion, etc.) or food allergies?
You’re comparing unlike items.
A restaurant is an artisan, hand-made experience. Precicison engineering is a mass-scale automated identical process.
However the food industry DOES do that mass scale automated process! In mass food production facilities, which often look very much like those engineering plants full of advanced robotics.
There are many cooking robots, even one that makes sushi.
You don’t see them everywhere because humans are more versatle, easier to program/train, and cheaper.
Robots arent very smart. They do exactly what you tell them to do. Which is why you have to be generously specific with the command you need to give it. So for example, lets say you want to use a cutter to cut a circular hole on an aluminium sheet. The instructions would look something like this.
* find the raw part located a, b ,c
* pick it up
* move it fast to this and this position
* fix it
* close lid
* start the cutter
* move the cutter to the point where i want start cutting the circle
* start cutting in circular fashion
* lift up the cutter
* stop it and move it back.
* remove workpiece
* move it to its next location.
And this is the most basic rundown of things. There will be codes involved everywhere. And youll always have to be very very specific with the instructions. Now I want you to try and think of a coding in “making scrambled eggs”. Find eggs, find specific pan, hit the eggs with gradually increasing amount of force, stop when the cracking is noticed, ensure no shells are in the pan, if they are, discard, if no proceed. I could go on, but I think youre getting the idea of why its difficult. And were only talking one simple recipe here btw. Its very hard to code in decision making in robots. Not that it cant be done ofc. People make experimental robots all the time thall do it for you, but thats what they are, experimental robots. Their viability today is limited at least in the pantry. besides, why even go through all the problems and make robots when humans can do the easily and for cheap. Robots are very helful dont get me wrong here. Theyre great when you need to do something repetitive but while maintaining same precision, or doing something work in hazardous conditions. Like welding robots for example.
You kind of answered your own question – they are good at precision engineering. Food is imprecise – the ingredients are all different sizes and shapes.
Tesla was aiming for 100% robot assembly but found with anything flexible, like wiring, it was easier to just hire a person than accommodate the robots who did a bad job.
Plus a robot can’t tell (yet) if something looks or tastes good to eat.
There are I believe some fast food places that do automate their production lines, but they are few. .
As to why we have such a small adoption, the way I see it, there are three main reasons:
1. Robots are best suited for extremely standardized and repetitive tasks. While cooking might seemingly look that way (just apply the recipe right?), it isn’t.
Not all pieces of meat are the same, and require slightly different times to cook for example. Same for vegetables, which might need to be chopped differently to adjust for variations.
Now I’m not saying that it’s *absolutely impossible* to create a robot that can do that, because we surely could, but that brings us to the second point.
2. Cost. The sheer complexity of a machine capable of performing all those tasks will make it big, and expensive to buy and maintain. This is sure to put off most restaurants.
3. Desirability. The sheer marketing power of “your dish was prepared by our fancily decorated chef/homeowner who put their heart into it” vs “by our soulless robot” is pretty sizeable IMO.
This is okay in fast food joints. Much less in better/fancier places
Precise robots require precise inputs. Those robots used in high speed/high precision factories have another automated machine who’s entire job is to carefully present the required part in a known position so it can easily be picked up, and each part is effectively identical
Cooking is imprecise, baking is a lot more manageable (it’s food chemistry) but cooking is hard
How do you make a fried egg? How long does it cook? Depends on the exact egg you get. If some eggs are 60 grams while others are 66 grams that changes the cooking time significantly. What do you do if you get a double yoke??
You can get around these issues with fancy($$$$) vision systems and image processing, but it’s often cheaper just to keep the meatbag at the grill than to try to replace him with a robot
Robots are expensive, so unless they are going to save a significant amount of money for the restaurant, it doesn’t offer any advantage over just hiring a chef.
Also, some restaurants do use robots – there’s a noodle cutting robot that some Chinese restaurants use.
Also if you have a flexible definition of “Robot,” things like sous vide circulators are technically robots, and restaurants definitely use those.
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