When a customer orders a bowl of dumpling ramen at a kiosk, a robot activates. A steel nozzle swirls boiling water and spicy broth paste into a pot. Dried noodles drop from a dispenser. Cradling heat and spice, the pot glides onto a burner. An overhead chute sprinkles dried vegetable flakes. The ramen simmers.
Finally, a kitchen worker stirs the noodles and places a few dumplings on top. A robotic arm lifts the pot and pours the ramen into a bowl, which travels down a conveyor belt to the counter.
“Customer number 477, your food is ready,” an automated voice announces to a catchy tune.
The robots were developed by Chef Robot Tech, a startup based in Namyangju, a robotics hub outside Seoul. The company reprogrammed the RB5 co-bot, originally built by a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, to mimic human cooking motions. They used training data created from dozens of trial runs by a team of engineers and chefs. Their bots can cook ramen, udon, or stew.
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