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Will The Waiters in The Restaurant Of The Future Be Robots?

Apr 07, 2023

In recent years, the growth rate of service robots in China has surpassed that of industrial robots, occupying the market share at a remarkable speed, and service robots have also entered the side of the masses. Nowadays, many people's home cleaning work has been handed over to a variety of sweeping robots, window cleaning robots and other cleaning robots, dishwashing work also has the help of dishwasher, even cooking are responsible for the completion of stir-frying robots, that in the commercial catering industry, ordinary waiters in the labor market is increasingly lacking, robot waiters will become the trend of the future?

 

Robot waiters are not out of the question, either. As early as five years ago, some restaurants saw robots carrying food from the kitchen to the table. The original food delivery robot technology was relatively backward, using Bluetooth positioning, with low positioning accuracy. Moreover, due to limited computing power, the robot's ability to perceive the environment was not strong, which was easy to cause accidents such as robot collision with people. All these reasons led to the rapid popularization of food service robots at that time.

 

With the gradual development of technology, robots are equipped with certain interactive capabilities, and have more fresh uses in addition to simply serving tools. In terms of technology, visual navigation and inertial navigation have become the mainstream navigation system. In terms of hardware, more sensors have been added and the chip with stronger computing power has been used as the brain. The robot's autonomous driving ability and environmental perception ability have been much higher than five years ago.

 

But can today's products replace waiters? What problems can not be solved in practical application? Is it likely that waiters in the food and beverage industry will be replaced by robots in the future?

 

The owner of Noodle Topia, a restaurant in Michigan, said in an interview that after he couldn't find waiters for his restaurant locally, he tried buying a robot from a Chinese service robot company. The arrival of the robot helped him solve his staffing problem and cut his operating costs. Now his restaurant needs three people to do the same amount of business that five or six people used to do, and one robot costs about $15,000, but one person can buy one for $5,000 to $6,000 a month, or three months 'wages. In addition to saving labor, robots generate business, giving waiters more time to care for customers, and customers often post videos of robots on social media to attract others to visit.

 

But this does not mean that robot waiters will be in a dominant position in the future, because it still has many bottlenecks and limitations in the use of time, if not improved, or even eliminated. The restaurant is a very complicated environment, with people constantly walking around in various places of the restaurant. People do not know the walking path of the robot, and the robot can only circumnavigate or avoid obstacles detected. Without communication, everything will become more chaotic.

 

Haidilao, a Chinese hotpot chain, recently began experimenting with robots to deliver food to diners' tables, but executives at some of its outlets said robots weren't as reliable or cost-effective in their stores as employees. A manager at a branch in Beijing said they used robots only occasionally, as a conceptual thing. Robots will never replace humans, and people who come to a restaurant want the experience of being cared for and served, rather than cold robots doing the same job for them.

 

Technically, catering robots also have some problems to be solved, such as the robot's adaptation to the environment needs to be improved. At present, the ground of many restaurants is not completely level, so the walking of robots will be limited to some extent. Or some restaurants with outdoor areas, when the robot is used, the robot cannot drive properly outside; At present, robots cannot walk to the table of guests to listen to and help them solve problems like employees. All these problems make the use of robots in restaurants relatively limited. If it is simply a tool that can only be transmitted between flat areas, some restaurant owners who want to use robots may need to spend more energy or money to transform the environment, which will lead to the increase of restaurant operating costs, and robots will become more unpopular.

 

With ChatGPT's success, it's becoming easier to add more and smarter interaction features to service bots, and future service bots may bring a better experience with interactive services. However, waiters in restaurants are not specially responsible for chatting with guests. In order to serve customers more like waiters, robots need to be closer to the needs of diners and find better solutions to serve customers.

 

There is no doubt that using robots to help or even replace human labor is the way the world is going, but replacing waiters with service robots is still a long way off. They can be good assistants to waiters, but they can't replace human waiters. Guests praise the addition of high-tech elements, but also want to get the essence of consumption - in exchange for emotional communication between people.

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