Cooking Robotics: Perception and motion planning
Abstract
In 2023-24, automation in the food industry and daily cooking assistants have gained increasing importance due to labor shortages, economic disparities, and increased hygiene emphasis in the post-COVID world. Additionally, today's diverse society demands personalized gastronomy services.
Recent technological advancements, such as large language models for control, big data for learning, and highly precise sensors, offer promising solutions to these challenges. However, there are limited opportunities to propose practical applications for these technologies or to provide comprehensive overviews of the associated issues.
This workshop invites world leading research scientists and practitioners to explore the new frontiers of `robots in cooking’, addressing various scientific research questions, including hardware considerations, key challenges in multimodal perception, motion planning and control, experimental methodologies, and benchmarking approaches. Our workshop will provide a platform for exchanging insights and addressing the challenges of these technologies in real-world settings through the lens of cooking robotics.
Furthermore, our aim is to bridge the gap between academia, industry, and professionals by inviting chefs, collaborating with a competition, Food Topping Challenge and showcasing tangible robot demonstrations. Participants will engage in interactive sessions to share state-of-the-art technologies and promote further research in the field of cooking robotics.
Topics of Interest
Unique elements of the workshop
Industry engagement to understand demand
Online demonstrations to understand real-world challenges
Topics
Perception
Computer vision
Haptics, tactile and proprioceptive sensing
Taste, smell, appearance
Ingredient / food characteristics and dynamics
Motion planning and control
Learning skills (pouring, stirring, cutting, transporting, etc)
Deformable object manipulation
Manipulation with tools
Task Planning
Task planning with recipe / LLM
Long-horizontal manipulation
Planning in the cooking domain (recipe and dish creation, manipulation in cluttered space, etc)
Hardware
Soft robotics
Hands for food manipulation
Haptics, tactile and proprioceptive sensors
Application
Human robot interaction
3D food printing and designing
Safety, reliability and hygiene
Needs and seeds for society, industry, and home
Invited Speakers
Panel discussion: Industry × Academia
Bridge the gap between industry, and professionals, and discuss the future of cooking robotics.
Let's share needs and seeds, challenges, and ambitions!!
Collaboration with "Food Topping Challenge" Competition
Yuki Nakagawa et al, RT Corporation
In their competition, some teams will challenge two cooking tasks: "A fried chicken pick and place to tray on conveyors" and "Serving Bowl meal, the Ikura Don." They will compete for speed, accuracy, visual quality, and the amount of food loss and cost.
We invite awarded teams to present and demonstrate their splendid works!
Make a revolution in food automation!!
Real robot demonstrations
Important Dates
Paper and Video submission deadline: 31st March 2024 7th April 2024
Notification of acceptance: 14th April 2024 16th April 2024.
Workshop date: 17th May 2024
Call for Participation (Closed)
We encourage participants to submit their research in the form of a video (180 sec) and a short (1-4 pages, excluding references) paper. We welcome contributors from academia, industry and professionals!!
Please check the detail in Call for contributions page. (Closed)
Please check the lists of accepted papers in Accepted works.
Organizer
The University of Edinburgh, The Alan Turing Institute, and Waseda University
The University of Tokyo
Tatsuya Matsushima
The University of Tokyo
The University of Tokyo
Marina Y. Aoyama
The University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh and The Alan Turing Institute
Sponsor
