An Intelligent Robotic System for Perceptive Pancake Batter Stirring and Precise Pouring

TL;DR

This paper introduces an intelligent robotic system capable of perceiving, mixing, and pouring pancake batter with high precision, demonstrating advanced handling of viscous liquids for automated culinary tasks.

Contribution

The system integrates haptic sensing and control algorithms to autonomously mix, estimate batter properties, and perform precise pouring, advancing robotic culinary automation.

Findings

Consistently produces batter of desired uniformity

Accurately estimates water-flour ratio and liquid level

Precisely pours batter into complex shapes

Abstract

Cooking robots have long been desired by the commercial market, while the technical challenge is still significant. A major difficulty comes from the demand of perceiving and handling liquid with different properties. This paper presents a robot system that mixes batter and makes pancakes out of it, where understanding and handling the viscous liquid is an essential component. The system integrates Haptic Sensing and control algorithms to autonomously stir flour and water to achieve the desired batter uniformity, estimate the batter's properties such as the water-flour ratio and liquid level, as well as perform precise manipulations to pour the batter into any specified shape. Experimental results show the system's capability to always produce batter of desired uniformity, estimate water-flour ratio and liquid level precisely, and accurately pour it into complex shapes. This research showcases the potential for robots to assist in kitchens and step towards commercial culinary automation.