Flippy the burger flipping robot, coming to a burger joint near you (not too soon though).
Move aside Spongebob, there's a new burger flipping machine in town: Flippy.
Robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions company, Miso Robotics said it has made the world’s first autonomous robotic kitchen assistant that can learn from its surroundings and acquire new skills over time.
Technical terminology aside, based on Flippy's one minute introduction video, it is basically a robotic arm that flips burgers.
According to Miso Robotic's page, some of Flippy's features include OSHA-compliant laser proximity sensors that allow staff to collaborate with Flippy safely, 3D and thermal scanners for eyes and a connection to the Miso AI for a brain, plus intergration into a restaurant's Point of Sales and Kitchen Order software.
The company assures that Flippy cooks patties perfectly and consistently every time, has automatic spatula switching and grill cleaning functions, recognises and monitors items on the grill, is fully wash down compatible, can cook between 150 to 300 burgers per hour, works in any commercial kitchen, has Cloud based monitoring and learning, plus is a reliable food-safe robot capable of 100,000 hours of continous uptime.
Flippy would begin working at a CaliBurger’s Pasadena, California in the United States during lunchtime.
“Our mission is to improve working conditions of chefs and line cooks with assistants, not replace them. Anyone who’s ever worked in a restaurant knows how hard the work is and the value of extra hands and that’s exactly what we built," said Miso Robotics CEO David Zito, in a press statement.
Miso Robotics partnered with CaliBurger, Cali Group’s restaurant operating division, in 2016 to develop a cost-effective and efficient solution to restaurants' challenges of high staff turnover rate and increasing demand for prepared foods.
Their solution was to develop Miso AI, a Cloud-connected learning platform that powers industrial robotic arms.
Miso AI combined 3D, thermal and regular vision to automatically detect when raw burger patties were placed on the grill and monitored each one in real-time throughout the cooking process.
As the patties cook, Miso AI displayed the cooking time on a screen that also alerts kitchen staff when to place cheese on top or when to dress a burger.
This also enabled Flippy to switch from using a spatula for raw meat and one for cooked meat, and even to clean spatulas while cooking and to wipe the surface of the grill with a scraper.
Cali Group chairman John Miller the deployment of Flippy in CaliBurger restaurants represented a major milestone in helping their staff produce burgers more consistently and in a timely manner.
"The ease of integration into our existing kitchen lines will also allow us to quickly install Flippy in more locations nationwide," he added.
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