Robotic Cooking: Adaptive and Precise Cutting System Based on Food Outer Shape and Internal Flexibility

The universal task of cutting requires the extensive use of knives and other cutting tools in our daily lives. When cutting soft and hard objects such as meat, fish, and fruit, humans can perform efficient cuts without causing damage by adapting their movements to the characteristics of the food. The effective manipulation of a knife by a robot is imperative for automating such tasks. This research aims to develop a cutting motion system capable of handling various food materials and automating cooking operations in restaurants and food manufacturing plants by studying human sensory knife manipulation and its impact on the reaction force while cutting food materials. In order to automate the cooking process for various types of food ingredients, it is necessary to recognize the shape of the targets and determine the position and angle of the knife accordingly. In this study, we developed a method that takes into account the shape and flexibility of the food to minimize deformation during cutting. By measuring the reaction forces encountered when cutting various food materials, we devised a pull cut motion system capable of generating trajectories suited to the specific shape of the food material. This paper describes the cutting system and the results of a demonstration experiment.