Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. 24/7 Space News .




ROBO SPACE
Robo-cook: android restaurant boots up in China
by Staff Writers
Kunshan, China (AFP) Aug 14, 2014


This photo taken on August 13, 2014, shows a robot being loaded with food to bring to customers in a restaurant in Kunshan. It's more teatime than Terminator -- a restaurant in China is electrifying customers by using more than a dozen robots to cook and deliver food. Image courtesy AFP.

It's more teatime than Terminator -- a restaurant in China is electrifying customers by using more than a dozen robots to cook and deliver food.

Mechanical staff greet customers, deliver dishes to tables and even stir-fry meat and vegetables at the eatery in Kunshan, which opened last week.

"My daughter asked me to invent a robot because she doesn't like doing housework," the restaurant's founder Song Yugang told AFP.

Two robots are stationed by the door to cheerfully greet customers, while four short but humanoid machines carry trays of food to the tables.

In the kitchen, two large blue robots with glowing red eyes specialise in frying, while another is dedicated to making dumplings.

Song told the local Modern Times newspaper that each robot costs around 40,000 yuan ($6,500) -- roughly equal to the annual salary of a human employee.

"The robots can understand 40 everyday sentences. They can't get sick or ask for vacation. After charging up for two hours they can work for five hours," he added.

The restaurant, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, follows in the tracks of another robotic eatery which opened in the northeastern city of Harbin in 2012.

Rising labour costs in China have encouraged manufacturers to turn to automation, and the country last year surpassed Japan to become the world's biggest consumer of industrial robots.

The cooking robots -- which have a fixed repertoire -- exhibit limited artificial intelligence, and are loaded with ingredients by human staff, who also help to make some dishes.

But customers at the restaurant who tucked into fried tomatoes with egg, soup, and rice were thrilled with the experience.

"My children are really excited by the robots," said Yang Limei, a mother of three.

The round-headed waiter robots can only move along fixed paths, and politely ask customers to move out of their way whenever their routes are blocked.

"I've never seen a robot serving food before," said Yuan Yuan, nine. "I'm really surprised."

.


Related Links
All about the robots on Earth and beyond!






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








ROBO SPACE
Robots inspired by origami can fold selves, walk away
Washington (AFP) Aug 07, 2014
It starts out laying flat, like a sheet of paper. Then it springs up, almost lifelike, and folds into moveable parts much like origami art. And then it crawls away. This new kind of robot could someday be used in space exploration, to slide into collapse sites to aid search and rescue, or to speed up manufacturing on assembly lines, experts said Thursday. While this particular machine's ... read more


ROBO SPACE
China to test recoverable moon orbiter

China to send orbiter to moon and back

August supermoon will be brightest this year

Manned Moon Mission to Cost Russia $2.8 Bln

ROBO SPACE
Curiosity Mars Rover Prepares for Fourth Rock Drilling

Tall Boulder Rolls Down Martian Hill, Lands Upright

Opportunity Heads to 'Marathon Valley'

NASA Mars Curiosity Rover: Two Years and Counting on Red Planet

ROBO SPACE
Yi So-yeon, Korea's first and only astronaut, resigns

XCOR Lynx Spacecraft Lands at Monterey Jet Center

Study Compiles Data on Problem of Sleep Deprivation in Astronauts

Aerojet Completes CST-100 Work for Commercial Crew Work

ROBO SPACE
China's first private rocket firm aims for market

China Sends Remote-Sensing Satellite into Orbit

More Tasks for China's Moon Mission

China's Circumlunar Spacecraft Unmasked

ROBO SPACE
ISS Spacewalkers Deploy Nanosatellite, Install and Retrieve Science

Orbital cargo ship makes planned re-entry to Earth

Russian Cosmonauts Carry Out Science-Oriented Spacewalk Outside ISS

The ISS just dumped 3,300 lbs of space trash to burn up in Earth's atmosphere

ROBO SPACE
Aerojet Rocketdyne Supports Fifth Successful Launch in Six Weeks

Optus 10 delivered to French Guiana for Ariane 5 Sept launch

SpaceX to build world's first commercial rocket launch site in south Texas

Ariane 5 is readied for Arianespace's September launch with MEASAT-3b and Optus 10

ROBO SPACE
Rotation of Planets Influences Habitability

Planet-like object may have spent its youth as hot as a star

Young binary star system may form planets with weird and wild orbits

Hubble Finds Three Surprisingly Dry Exoplanets

ROBO SPACE
The Future of CubeSats

Lockheed taps GenDyn unit for Space Fence ground equipment structures

Canada's MDA receives radar antennas for satellite use

Disney develops method to capture stylized hair for 3-D-printed figurines




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.