Have you ever seen a robot that can perfectly slice fruit? It’s certainly not something we’re accustomed to just yet.
RoboNinja is an AI-powered robot developed by researchers at Columbia University in the United States. The purpose of creating RoboNinja is to achieve perfect cuts on soft objects while containing a hard core inside. To better visualize this concept, we can think of fruits like avocados or mangoes.
Recently, a video showcasing this robot slicing fruit was released, generating much excitement among viewers. As you can see in the video, the robot can cut around the mango pit quite closely and perfectly.
AI robot slicing fruit.
While similar techniques were previously applied to robots primarily using open-loop cutting maneuvers to slice through objects, this new version, supported by AI, can consider the hard core inside and assist the robotic arm in handling the object from the surrounding area first.
According to the researchers, to achieve this, the system utilizes initial collision information to estimate the position and shape of the object’s core. It then activates cutting actions based on the estimated state and tolerance values. As collisions continue, the system adjusts to change the trajectory of the next cut to maintain a safe distance from the estimated core. This is not a simple task, as learning cutting skills directly has long been a challenge for most robots worldwide.
Additionally, the research team mentioned they have employed “differential cutting simulators” and “low-cost force sensors” to enable the robot to learn various cutting methods in real-world situations, especially with objects of different shapes and materials.
Dear robot, we humans slice avocados differently.
However, it is clear that no one would want to eat an avocado cut in the style of a mango as shown above. Human hands and brains have evolved perfectly to handle simple tasks like peeling fruit, and the tips shared on the internet seem to make this task even simpler.
Robots may become valuable tools to assist humans in the future. But there’s no way this job, or sometimes this pleasure, will be taken away from us.
