Self-controlled robots will soon be delivering food on the streets of Tokyo. Starting next month, Uber Eats will use robots to deliver orders in parts of Tokyo. The robots have been developed through a partnership with a robotics firm (Cartken) and Japanese industrial giant Mitsubishi Electric.
Some Japanese restaurants began using robot waiters for contactless dining in the aftermath of the coronavirus epidemic, and some major Japanese restaurant chains have been using robot servers for years now:
Cartken’s Model C robots will be delivering the food and navigating the sidewalks of Tokyo, and the operations will be supervised by Mitsubishi Electric as part of the partnership.
Cartken’s Model C robots use AI and computer vision technologies to navigate their environments.
The sidewalk-traversing robots are designed to avoid obstacles, yield to pedestrians, and stop at traffic lights. They travel at roughly the same speed as a walking adult and are fitted with a cargo bin that is designed to keep food at an appropriate temperature during transport.
Uber Eats and Cartken first partnered to launch autonomous robot delivery services in parts of Miami in 2022, and expanded robot delivery to Fairfax, Virginia, last year.
Japan…has been contending with an aging population and shrinking workforce for years now that has put an outsized strain on its logistics infrastructure.
Robot waiters are also being used in South Korean restaurants, which are facing a labor shortage. In the U.S., kitchen robots shoot kale into salads, fry tortilla chips and cook burgers. Chipotle, for example, is investing in a “digital makeline” where robots prepare salads and bowls. It already uses a machine named Chippy to make tortilla chips and a contraption called the Autocado to mash avocados into guacamole. Sweetgreen has a robotic chop-and-prep system that “can produce up to 100 salads in 15 minutes, with improved accuracy,” according to Restaurant Business. Chipotle’s founder, Steve Ells, is opening a chain of robot-run vegetarian fast-casual restaurants in New York City called Kernel, according to Eater.
Robots with artificial intelligence are spreading on Japanese farms. In the U.S., farming robots now use artificial intelligence to kill 100,000 weeds per hour. Drones with artificial intelligence will make farming easier.
Doctors recently used a surgical robot to carry out incredibly complicated spinal surgery. Doctors also recently did the first robotic liver transplant in America.
Scientists have developed tiny robots made of human cells to repair damaged cells. Nanorobots are also being used to fight cancer. “In a major advancement in nanomedicine, Arizona State University scientists…have successfully programmed nanorobots to shrink tumors by cutting off their blood supply,” reported Next Big Future.
Artificial intelligence is now developing highly-effective antibodies to fight disease. Doctors overseas are using artificial intelligence to detect cases of breast cancer more effectively.
