Food Delivery Robots Help Smart Catering Transformation

(ChinaIT.com) A food delivery robot refers to an intelligent commercial service robot that can replace restaurant waiters to deliver food, return plates, and receive guests. Since the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, people's demand for food delivery robots has been increasing, and market recognition has 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, China's industrial robot output in 2019 was 186,943 sets, a year-on-year increase of 26.6%; China's industrial robot output in 2020 was 237,068 sets, a year-on-year increase of 26.8%; in 2021, China's industrial robot output reached 366,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 67.9%; revenue exceeded 80 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of nearly 30%.

The food delivery robot is equipped with core hardware such as chips, controllers, reducers, and drive devices. It has functions including automatic food delivery, autonomous charging, autonomous navigation, and autonomous obstacle avoidance. It integrates technologies such as mobile robots, multi-sensor information fusion and navigation, and multi-modal human-machine exchange. According to different movement modes, they can be divided into tracked food delivery robots and trackless food delivery robots. Tracked food delivery robots have fixed tracks and cannot be moved at will. They use magnetic navigation technology and RFID positioning technology to realize the delivery of food at a fixed position; trackless robots refer to robots that do not have fixed tracks and can move at will. They use UWB technology and fully autonomous navigation and positioning technology to realize the full range of robot movement.

Food delivery robots can replace or partially replace restaurant waiters to serve customers, which can not only improve the efficiency of food preparation, but also reduce labor costs. They have great development potential in the post-epidemic era and have a positive impact on improving brand image. However, some technical bottlenecks have also emerged in the promotion of food delivery robots, which have hindered the expansion of their application scenarios to a certain extent, including the deviation of the tracking path during the food delivery process and the lack of intelligence of the human-computer interaction function. Among them, there are two more common problems:

Path stability during tracking The food delivery robot relies on the tracking system for navigation. Through the tracking system, the food delivery robot can walk to the target position autonomously. Among the many tracking technologies, magnetic navigation technology is usually used. Because the magnetic detection sensor is restricted by hardware performance, tracking module algorithm, and drive system reaction speed, the food delivery robot usually has deviations in the tracking process. 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 left and right during the travel process. When the robot travels at a higher speed, unnecessary deceleration may also occur, causing the actual route to deviate greatly from the predetermined trajectory.

Obstacle recognition reliability Since the route of the food delivery robot is generally a preset route, fixed obstacles such as tables, chairs and walls in the restaurant have been avoided in the pre-setting. The main obstacles that the food delivery robot needs to identify are movable obstacles such as dining customers and luggage. These obstacles have the characteristics of unfixed positions, various shapes, and a wide variety of materials. Because they involve 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 has poor detection effect on objects with colors close to black; 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, a fusion obstacle avoidance technology combining infrared sensors and ultrasonic sensors can be adopted to enable the food delivery robot to respond quickly to emergencies and send signals to the main control module in time, and the main control module will take measures such as deceleration or stopping.

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