Tokyo (SCCIJ) – The “Roboclette” is the first machine in the world capable of scraping melted cheese. In February, the Swiss robot arms demonstrated their culinary capabilities at several events in Tokyo and Osaka.
Nicolas Fontaine and Garrett Wollam from the Workshop 4.0 team accompanied the Roboclette at an Embassy of Switzerland in Japan event (© Embassy of Switzerland in Japan).
Learning by doing
Roboclette leverages Artificial Intelligence to achieve the seemingly impossible: perfectly replicating the delicate art of scraping cheese. Under the guidance of cheese maestro Eddy Baillifard from Raclett’House, Roboclette’s robotic arm has been meticulously trained to mimic the precise movements and pressure needed to master this cherished Swiss tradition.
This innovative technology, developed by the Robot Learning & Interaction group from the Idiap Research Institute in the canton of Valais, holds vast potential, extending far beyond cheese scraping. Applications can range from creating advanced prosthetics to streamlining industrial robots and even performing delicate surgical procedures.
Robots are programmed for a specific task, which is repeated accurately in a loop. But scraping an uneven surface full of melted cheese requires a different skill. “Thanks to artificial intelligence algorithms, the robotic arm can generate movements that can adapt to new situations. In this specific case, the cheese can be in slightly different positions and orientations, and there can be more or less cheese left in the oven,” explains Sylvain Calinon, head of Idiap’s Robot Learning & interaction group.
Transfer of human skill
With swift and practiced movements, the cheese master gently applies just the right pressure to the melting cheese, guiding it effortlessly onto the plate. While the seemingly simple act of scraping cheese might appear effortless, achieving this culinary feat requires years of honed skill.
“Depending on the type of raclette cheese, the surface can vary in terms of softness and can be more or less fluid,” says Eddy Baillifard, the Master and ambassador of the raclette cheese. Mimicking this skill with a robot isn’t easy. To achieve this, Emmanuel Pignat, a PhD from Idiap’s Robot Learning & Interaction group, used a novel approach: Eddy guided the robot’s arm to let it record the movements and forces needed to perform the task.
This learning technique allows the transfer of skills from the human to the robot in an intuitive manner. The range of applications is wide, including industrial robots, service robots, and assistive robots. It relieves professionals of their most repetitive, dangerous, or uncomfortable duties, to spend more time using their human skills, such as supervision, evaluation, or decision-making.
Text: SCCIJ based on material of Idiap
