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B21 Kitchen Robot Shares Cooking Tips With Other Bots

The B21 kitchen robot is a robotic chef with several advanced features; it can find its way around a specially equipped kitchen using the same tools you do and it can share what it knows with other robots.


(B21 kitchen robot)

The robot chef was developed at the Technical University of Munich; Michael Beetz is the team leader for development. Rather than learning opjects by shape (which is more difficult) it requires that tags using RFID technology be attached to each item. Some products are manufactured with embedded RFID tags anyway.

"If you want to interpret and understand everyday activities using vision data, it's very complicated, error-prone, and resource intensive," says Beetz. "If you do it with RFID tags, there is very little sensor information, but it's highly correlated with the activities you are performing.”

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this robot is that, once it learns how to use an object, it can share this knowledge with other robots.


(B21 kitchen robot visualization)

This capability has been illustrated in mainstream science fiction movies. In the 2003 film I, Robot, the most advanced robots, the NS5's, had a special feature: additional software and instructions could be downloaded wirelessly to individual robots. NS5's receiving a download show a red glow in the chest cavity.


(Middle NS5 Robot Gets A Download)

In his 1943 short story Robinc, Anthony Boucher goes the other way. Rather than teaching a robot to use tools, why not create a robot that is the tool:

"Half your time in cooking is wasted raching around for what you need next. We can build in a lot of that stuff. For instance, one tentacle can be a registering thermometer. tapering to a find point - stick it in a roast and - One can end in a broad spoon for stirring - heat resistant, of course.
(Read more about Boucher's robot chef)

Read more at Robot chef gets a boost from wireless kitchen; thanks to Moira for finding the story and the video.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/15/2008)

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Index of related articles:

Active Tag (Active RFID Tag)
Amplitude Modulation (AM)
Antenna (RFID Tag Antenna)
Anti-collision
Back scatter (RFID back scatter)
Bi-directional
Contactless smart card
Chipless RFID tag
Contactless Credit Cards
Closed Systems (or Closed Loop Systems)
Code plate (RFID code plate)
Continuous Wave (CM)
Electromagnetic Interference (EMI)
Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS)
Electronic Product Code (EPC)
Error Correcting Code (ECC)
Error Correcting Mode
Error Correcting Protocol
Excite
Factory Programming
Field Programming
Frequency Modulation (FM)
Frequency Shift Keyed Modulation (FSKM)
Frequency Hopping
Harvest
Inductive Coupling
Modulation
Passive RFID Tag (or Passive Tag)
Phase Modulation (PM)
Pulse Duration
RF Fibers
RFID Reader
RFID Tag Collision
RFID tag
Smart label (RFID Smart Label)
RFID Reader Collision
Smart cards
Transponder for RFID

Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")

Robotic Hands Have More Than One Use
'The crawling, exploring object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...' - Philip K. Dick, 1955.

'No, I'm Not A Robot' - Robot
'... with a weird simulation of life, the ten forked ends of each arm commenced a rattling pressing of the buttons.' - Schachner and Zagat, 1931.

Barista Robot Perfects Latte Swirl With Multi-DOF Wriggle
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.' - Anthony Boucher, 1943.

Safe Street Rebel Autonomous Vehicle Luddites And Schachner's 1931 Robot-Deranger
'Then the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and they stood an instant transfixed...' - Schachner/Zagat, 1931

 

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