OnionBot: A System for Collaborative Computational Cooking

TL;DR

This paper introduces OnionBot, a human-centered cooking system using computer vision to assist users without robotic manipulation, fostering natural collaboration and aiding future autonomous systems.

Contribution

It presents a novel, actuator-free system design for collaborative cooking, emphasizing human-machine interaction through visual cues rather than robotic dexterity.

Findings

Assistive automation enhances user-led cooking tasks.

System generates image databases for future autonomous robots.

Open source implementation available for community development.

Abstract

An unsolved challenge in cooking automation is designing for shared kitchen workspaces. In particular, robots struggle with dexterity in the unstructured and dynamic kitchen environment. We propose that human-machine collaboration can be achieved without robotic manipulation. We describe a novel system design using computer vision to inform intelligent cooking interventions. This human-centered approach does not require actuators and promotes dynamic, natural collaboration. We show that automation that assists user-led actions can offer meaningful cooking assistance and can generate the image databases needed for fully autonomous robotic systems of the future. We provide an open source implementation of our work and encourage the research community to build upon it.