The catering service robot is a humanoid intelligent device developed by the Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Positioned for hotel catering services and exhibition hall reception, it has been in trial operation in hotels since 2013. The robot was developed at a base in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province. Its design has evolved from a square shape to a humanoid form.
The robot is equipped with line-following and RFID tag recognition capabilities. It supports infrared remote control or tablet computer control to perform tasks such as greeting guests, serving food, taking orders, and delivering dishes. The tablet remote control system integrates order transmission to the kitchen and front desk. An emergency obstacle avoidance system can detect obstacles up to half a meter high, and the voice interaction module supports fixed-word dialogue. After trial operation, the R&D team enhanced visual recognition, voice interaction, and dual-arm grasping capabilities, enabling it to recognize common objects and people and perform simple storage actions.
Trial operation has been conducted in local hotels in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province. Further optimization work will continue for 3 to 4 months to make the robot's performance more stable and its movement path more accurate. Its key components, such as motors, drives, and reducers, mainly rely on imports. The performance gap between domestically produced and imported components is one of the main factors affecting its cost.
