Pudu Robotics Adds Grasping Function for Restaurant Robots
April 18, 2022
China-based Pudu Robotics, which develops commercial service robots for restaurants and mobile delivery tasks, has unveiled its PUDU A1 robot. The company calls the PUDU A1 a compound delivery robot, designed for restaurant settings. The robot employs technologies that include food recognition, positioning and grasping, laser SLAM and visual SLAM in order to help bridge the divide between the kitchen and dining table.
“Pudu Robotics has been continuously enriching the service space and expanding application scenarios ever since we rolled out our first product,” said Felix Zhang, founder and CEO of Pudu Robotics. “We have launched a variety of service robots in the restaurant scenario, including food serving, dish collecting and handling, welcoming and seating of diners, and general cleaning. The PUDU A1 represents the next stage in the development of delivery services based on technology accumulation, enabling more complete, comprehensive and perfected services.”
The PUDU A1 food recognition technology is able to identify the different types of food being served through deep learning. When combined with its visual positioning and grasping technology, the mechanical arm can accurately locate the plates in real time, and grip correctly to ensure transfer to the designated table through communication with a restaurant’s management system.
The laser SLAM and visual SLAM technologies allow PUDU A1 to achieve a stopping accuracy of +/- 7mm, and offset the change of the robot’s center of gravity by using real-time computation based on the “adaptive module for dynamic center of gravity” to ensure high stability, Pudu said.
In addition, using complex identification perception technology of the table environment, the A1 can calculate the space where the dishes are to be placed, and correctly place them on the table with optimal obstacle avoidance path planning in real time. The robot’s multi-sensor categorization safety control system can assure customer harmony and avoid collisions in complicated, dynamic restaurant environments, the company added.
“PUDU A1, with ‘arms’ and ‘eyes’, is another industry first designed by Pudu Robotics based on our many years of expertise in the restaurant sector,” said Zhang. “The integration of the mechanical arm and AI is also another advance in commercial delivery robots. WIth the fast expansion of the robot industry, we will continue to explore technological advances and innovate to provide consistent service, to produce robots that actually improve the efficiency of human production and living.”
For more details on the company and its robots, visit the Pudu Robotics website here.
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