Robotic Drink Bar

What it does

Robotic Drink Bar is the same as the real drink shop, you can order a customized drink. The robotic arms used are far less expensive than the conventional ones, so it solves the problem of labor shortage and the cost problem.

Your inspiration

The labor shortage is increasing year by year, and it is becoming a serious situation, and it will be essential to improve productivity using robots in the future. Currently, robots are still working to improve productivity, but according to a survey conducted by the Japanese government, the fact that “cost is high” is the barrier to introduction of more than half. Therefore, we are developing an ultra-low cost robot arm that solves this problem and demand with a cost of about 1/50 of the conventional robot arm. And we have selected the drink bar as the first social implementation and are developing it.

How it works

At the robot drink bar, you can order a variety of base drinks, toppings, syrups, ice amounts, etc. as you would at a conventional drink shop. By ordering in advance via a dedicated app, you can have a seamless purchasing experience without waiting time. You can also recommend past drinks, base drinks, toppings, syrup amounts, and combinations.

Design process

We have completed a prototype v1.0 of an ultra-low cost robot arm that costs about 1/50 of the cost of a conventional robot arm, and currently we are developing a prototype v2.0 of an ultra-low cost robot arm and a MVP for a robot drink bar. As the theme of the first social implementation, we decided on a drink bar, considering things that are technically low level so that lean development and verification can be performed, and things that have potential for future development.

How it is different

The first major difference from the existing products is that the robot arm is realized at a cost about 1/50 that of the conventional robot arm, and we believe that this will greatly reduce the barrier to robot introduction. Second, the robot arm can change menus and provide limited menus by updating the software, and it is possible to update advanced additional functions such as preparation and cleaning in the future. Third, because it uses a robot arm that imitates a human arm, it has a sense of security and familiarity compared to conventional vending machines, and is superior in human-robot interaction.

Future plans

We plan to create an MVP with the minimum functions of the robot drink bar and release it in a small scale in the near future. Our goal is not just to automate the drink shop, but to “realize a world where automating tedious tasks with robots”.The robot drink bar is just the first crossing point. In the future, I would like to contribute to the automation of other industries, including the automation of other food and beverage industries and the automation of agriculture where the aging is serious.

Awards

Daikin Venture Summit 2020　Samurai Award