On January 13, a unique restaurant kicked off its trial operation beside Jingzhou North Road in Xihu District.
Stepping inside feels like walking into a “future kitchen”: robotic arms wield spatulas to stir-fry vegetables, a nearby noodle cooker lifts steaming noodles, and an ice cream robot hands over a cone… From ordering to serving, most of the work is completed by robots collaborating with each other.
Diversified Robot Fleet: Full-Link Intelligent Operation
Counting them up, there are more than ten robots in the restaurant, including cooking robots, noodle cooking robots, coffee robots, ice cream robots, floor-cleaning robots, and food delivery robots. Corresponding robots are assigned to tasks like stir-frying, boiling noodles, making coffee, delivering meals, and even mopping the floor, enabling an entirely intelligent operation from food preparation to serving.
This is the “24 Solar Terms AI Robot Restaurant”, also Hangzhou’s first-ever “AI Robot Restaurant”. Despite being a community canteen for the elderly, this restaurant stands out with a strong sense of technology and a youthful vibe. A group of elderly residents who came to check it out were all fascinated, remarking that the place is fully “controlled” by robots. More than ten types of service robots are deployed here, handling everything from boiling noodles and cooking dishes to making coffee and ice cream, as well as cleaning floors and delivering meals. The entire process from food preparation to serving is almost fully automated.
Closed-Loop Automation: Adapting to Complex Kitchen Environments
In the restaurant’s kitchen, the robot system has to cope with a real and complex environment: limited space, a wide variety of items, and numerous process steps. From receiving an order, retrieving ingredients, operating kitchen utensils, and completing cooking processes to finally plating and serving the dishes, the whole workflow involves more than 20 operational nodes. Now, these tasks can be independently connected and completed by robots, achieving a closed-loop process from ingredient retrieval to finished product serving without manual intervention. In addition, through collaborative sensing and real-time path planning, robots can navigate autonomously and avoid obstacles, laying a solid foundation for safe operation.
AI-Powered Cooking: Replicating “Wok Hei” and Stable Flavors
In the past, people worried that robot-cooked food would lack the “wok hei” (the smoky flavor from stir-frying in a hot wok). However, today’s AI cooking systems have already achieved a qualitative leap. The cooking robots in this Hangzhou restaurant are preloaded with over a hundred recipes, incorporating motion data from professional chefs in advance. After thousands of adjustments via AI algorithms, they can precisely control the heat and stir-frying rhythm. The stir-fried green vegetables with shiitake mushrooms they make have diners exclaiming that they “taste just like dishes cooked by a top chef”.
Intelligent Scheduling System: The Core of Efficient Operation
Supporting the efficient operation of all these systems is a powerful AI intelligent scheduling platform. Each robot is equipped with independent heating, sensing, and motion modules, all under the unified command of a central system, which realizes full-link collaboration for position calibration, process connection, and status monitoring. Algorithm engineers at the Hangzhou restaurant revealed that the team spent over three months on research, development, and debugging, continuously correcting positions and optimizing movement routes to ensure every step from food preparation to delivery is accurate and error-free.
AI technology not only improves efficiency but also reshapes the operational logic of the catering industry. The traditional catering sector has long been plagued by problems such as high labor costs, inconsistent dish quality, and efficiency bottlenecks during peak hours, and robot restaurants offer targeted solutions. Robot cooking eliminates human interference, stably replicating the skills of master chefs and avoiding flavor variations caused by different cooks.
As AI robots precisely control the cooking heat and intelligent systems efficiently schedule workflows, the efficiency and quality standards of the catering industry are being redefined.
