Food delivery robot helps smart catering transformation

Meal delivery robots refer to intelligent commercial service robots that can replace restaurant waiters in food delivery, order return and reception. Since the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, people's demand for food delivery robots has been increasing, and market recognition has also been rising. my country's food delivery robot industry may enter a period of rapid explosive growth. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the output of China's industrial robots in 2019 was 186,943 sets, a year-on-year increase of 26.6%; in 2020, the output of China's industrial robots was 237,068 sets, a year-on-year increase of 26.8%; in 2021, the output of China's industrial robots reached 366,000 units, A year-on-year increase of 67.9%; revenue exceeded 80 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 30% year-on-year.

The food delivery robot is equipped with core hardware such as chips, controllers, reducers, and driving devices. It has functions including automatic food delivery, autonomous charging, autonomous navigation, and autonomous obstacle avoidance. It integrates mobile robots, multi-sensor information fusion and navigation and Multimodal man-machine exchange and other technologies. According to different moving modes, it can be divided into tracked food delivery robot and trackless food delivery robot. The tracked food delivery robot has a fixed track and cannot move the robot at will. Magnetic navigation technology and RFID positioning technology are used to realize the fixed position delivery of the robot; trackless A robot refers to a robot that has no fixed track and can move at will. UWB technology and fully autonomous navigation and positioning technology are used to realize the all-round movement of the robot.

Meal delivery robots can replace or partially replace restaurant waiters to serve customers, which can not only improve the efficiency of meal catering, but also reduce labor costs. It has huge development potential in the post-epidemic era and has a positive impact on enhancing the brand image. However, there are also some technical bottlenecks in the promotion process of food delivery robots, which hinder the expansion of its application scenarios to a certain extent, including problems such as tracking path deviation in the process of food delivery, human-computer interaction functions are not intelligent enough, etc., among which are the following Two more common questions:

Path stability during the tracking process The food delivery robot relies on the tracking system for navigation. The food delivery robot can walk to the target location autonomously through the tracking system. Among the many tracking technologies, magnetic navigation technology is usually used. Since the magnetic detection sensor is restricted by hardware performance, tracking module algorithm, and drive system response speed, etc., deviations usually occur during the tracking process of food delivery robots. The time to correct the position deviation determines the stability of the food delivery robot. If the time is too long, it will cause the robot to shake from side to side during the traveling process. When the robot travels at a high speed, unnecessary deceleration may also occur, causing a large deviation between the actual traveling route and the predetermined trajectory.

Reliability of obstacle recognition Since the route of the food delivery robot is generally the preset route, fixed obstacles such as tables, chairs and walls in the restaurant have been avoided in the preset, and the main obstacles that the food delivery robot needs to recognize are dining Movable obstacles such as customers and luggage. These obstacles have the characteristics of unstable positions, different shapes, and various materials. Because it involves issues such as customer personal safety, it is particularly important to accurately identify these obstacles. Usually, obstacle recognition technologies include infrared sensing technology and ultrasonic sensing technology. The former cannot recognize translucent objects, and the detection effect on objects whose color is close to black is not good; the latter is not limited by the color of the object, but has disadvantages such as slow response speed. . In order to ensure efficient and reliable obstacle detection, the combined obstacle avoidance technology of infrared sensor and ultrasonic sensor can be adopted, so that the meal delivery robot can quickly respond to emergencies, send signals to the main control module in time, and the main control module will take action measures such as slowing down or stopping.

The epidemic has reshaped people's consumption habits. From the use of mobile phone online ordering, group meal cash registers, and unmanned self-service ordering machines in the ordering and settlement process, to contactless food delivery and smart catering delivery robots in the food delivery process, it can be used everywhere. Seeing the presence of smart catering hardware, with the continuous advancement of technology, the application of food delivery robots will gradually usher in a climax. I believe that the development prospects of food delivery robots will be brighter in the future.