Development of a Robotic Waiter System

Cheong, A; Lau, MWS; Foo, E; Hedley, J; Bo, JW

doi:10.1016/j.ifacol.2016.10.679

Development of a Robotic Waiter System

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Michael Lau, Dr Edwin Foo, Dr John Hedley

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Abstract

© 2016 The use of robots as waiters in restaurants is on an increasing trend in the service industry. Restaurants owners have begun to look towards robots to aid in serving the customers due to shortage of waiters. We have developed a prototype of a mecanum wheeled based mobile waiter robot for trial runs in a casual dining food outlet. Unlike existing waiter robots, it is autonomous, has higher payload and is able to travel and dock at the target table. However, as restaurants have the most diverse designs and layouts, developing an autonomous system can be more efficient when done in the Robot Operating System (ROS) framework and using a modular robot design. In ROS, path planning and navigation within a target restaurant can efficiently done using digital map of the environment or that generated by SLAM algorithm; with the Adaptive Monte-Carlo (AMCL) in ROS, the position of the robot can be determined and path planning can be done. Preliminary tests show that autonomous navigation is achieved, and the robot is able to dock at a target table and roll out the serving tray.