A group of students from the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, under the guidance of Maxim Bolotov, a master's student at the MEPhI Higher School of Engineering, has created a prototype of a robot waiter that can independently move around the hall of a cafe or restaurant and deliver orders to visitors. To navigate in space, the robot has a lidar - a laser locator, as well as a 3D video camera.
The robot, equipped with an electric motor, can move around the room at a speed comparable to the speed of a person walking briskly.
Before starting work, the robot waiter must make a tour of the restaurant hall and create a three-dimensional image of the room in its electronic "brain", MEPhI noted. After that, the cafe administrator will only have to give the robot waiter instructions on which tables it should drive up to and in what order.
The robot is equipped with a touch screen through which cafe visitors can place orders, and the administrator can set the robot's route. The robot can also be controlled remotely from a mobile phone or computer.
The robot waiter carries three trays of food, which it can move, but cannot independently move plates and cups from the tray to the table. In the near future, the robot developers plan to work on its design. They also plan to integrate a payment terminal into the robot's design and, possibly, add a voice module.
Earlier it became known that industrial exoskeletons equipped with artificial intelligence are being developed in Russia. They will analyze the load on a person during work, which will reduce the risk of industrial injuries and increase the efficiency of physical labor when performing various tasks, such as unloading, welding, working on a conveyor belt and working in an inclined position.
Read materials on the topic:
A Russian robot manipulator has been created for laboratory work in chemistry and physics
A new robot controller with wind generator recharging has been developed in Russia
An unmanned robot for milling - "Termit" - has been developed in St. Petersburg