Waiter Bots for Casual Restaurants

Waiter robots have been introduced in the food and beverage industry in the early 2000s in a number of countries, especially in Asia but with mixed receptions. Problem in designs appropriate for the environment, high costs and operation constraints are some reasons for the robots not being widely implemented on a larger scale. In this paper, it will discuss solutions that address these problems. To keep cost manageable, mechanical design is highly simplified, open source software algorithms for mobile robotics and integration with mobile Wi-Fi technologies currently in use in F&B settings are used. Wi-Fi apps for QR code allow for the tracking of customers' location and a secured local area Wi-Fi provides for the integration to business system. Using digital map and LiDAR and an array of short range IR sensors, the waiter robot is able to navigate autonomously from a serving point to a target point about 5 m away (repeated 10 times) to within 0.3 m (radius). It was next tested in an office environment and was ascertained to fulfil delivery tasks.