Cambridge researchers train robot to make omelettes

Cambridge University researchers have trained a robot to make omelettes, from cracking the eggs to plating the finished dish

Researchers from the University of Cambridge worked with domestic appliance firm Beko to train the machine to create the best omelette for the majority of tastes.

Dr Fumiya Iida from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering, said, “Cooking is a really interesting problem for roboticists, as humans can never be totally objective when it comes to food, so how do we as scientists assess whether the robot has done a good job?”

They used machine learning data from a study of volunteers and their reaction to different omelettes cooked in various ways to train the robot.

The  results show that machine learning can be used to obtain quantifiable improvements in food optimisation.

Further studies have to be conducted to investigate other optimisation techniques and their viability.