More and more people have it Robots They make it at home. The truth is that they make life a lot easier. But there is no such thing as a good chef tasting food at different stages of preparation. What if robots could do the same? Or more difficult, What if this could be done by imitating human chewing? This is what a team of scientists from the University of Cambridge is working on USAIn collaboration with Beko Technology brand.

And, in fact, it’s not the same to eat a dish as soon as you put it in your mouth, rather than after a little chewing. When this is done, More saliva is secreted and digestive enzymes change the signs of taste Which are then transmitted to the brain.

In addition, the food itself releases its components differently. It would be interesting if a food robot could do something like this. Therefore, These scientists decided to add this extra step to the casting process by using one of their robots.

It should be noted that what they describe in a recent study published in the journal Boundaries in Robotics and AI He is still in diapers. At the moment, Food robots only measure salt levels, Ignore other substances that can change the taste. Nevertheless, their results are promising, so they hope to convert them with other ingredients, such as sugar or oil.

This robot can cook and chew food

It is true that it is important to taste what he prepares. ᲡIn fact, There are already food robots that can do this. They have no taste as such, but measure the levels of various ingredients that are closely related to taste.

Despite this, People can taste and chew what they like And that’s what a food robot can’t do.

For this reason, scientists have decided to implement proof of the concept, which consists of a Conduction probe on Android robotic arm, Used as a salinity sensor. Then this robot had to taste a classic dish with scrambled eggs with tomatoes and determine if it was well salted, if there were many or vice versa, it was lacking.

The samples were passed through both pure and liquid so that their components would be released as they were chewed. thus, They created a taste map at different stages that was ready to be evaluated by human tasters.

A second improved version of the robot is expected

The simple fact that they can measure salinity by imitating different stages of chewing is a step forward. However, they still have a long way to go.

The goal is this Food robots can use these flavor maps for different ingredients and users can customize their preferences. For example, a person may want food to be more or less salty, depending on his preferences and health status.

The same goes for spices, sugar or many other flavored ingredients. Not everyone has the same preferences That’s why the food processor has to suit people.

So that’s the next step for this science. Test it with other components and, in addition, program it so that users can customize it to their own preferences. If they succeed, the world will meet a cooking robot that most closely resembles a real chef.

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