Robot Chef Hoping to Reach Consumers by 2017

Moley Robotics, a London-based robotics company, has developed a prototype “robochef” that could be seen in homes by 2017.

Huge swathes of data have been input into the robot, showing it how a human would cook, with the robot imitating these processes. Chef Tim Anderson was recorded in a motion-capture studio making original dishes, the output of which has been used to train the robot.

The robot can be instructed to make an entire dish from start to finish or, if the owner so chooses, can just do the prep.

Additions to the robot, hopefully by the time it is released to consumers, will include a library of thousands of recipes, a dishwasher and a refrigerator. The robot will of course come with an app, so it can be controlled remotely, meaning users can have it start cooking in time for when they arrive home.

Image courtesy of iflscience.com

Further additions to the robot, Moley hopes, will include cameras so that owners can programme their own recipes in for future use & to share, and to enable the robochef to handle trickier aspects of cooking, such as when to stop mixing to prevent splitting or over-beating.

The robot’s dextrous hands were created by Shadow Robot Company, also based in London and whose products are used by NASA. Shadow’s Rich Walker explains that the robot should be able to sense when a mixture gets stiffer, for example, and use that as an indicator to move onto the next stage of cooking.

The technology isn’t expected to come cheap and is looking to cost around £10,000.There are surely businesses that would benefit from having robotic kitchen assistance, helping ensure consistency and reducing time & waste, ultimately leading to cost savings.