Yoshinoya and FingerVision jointly develop dishwashing robot
*View in browser* *FingerVision Co., Ltd.*
Press release: March 20, 2024
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Yoshinoya and FingerVision jointly develop dishwashing robot *[FingerVision, a university-originated company developing tactile sensing technology]*
Yoshinoya and FingerVision sign joint development agreement
FingerVision Co., Ltd. (Representative Director: Yuki Nono,
hereinafter referred to as FingerVision) aims to expand the scope of application of robots and machines and solve various social issues through the practical application of university-originated
“visual-tactile” technology.Yoshinoya Co., Ltd. We have entered into a joint development agreement with Yasutaka Kawamura (CEO: Yasuki Kawamura, hereinafter referred to as Yoshinoya) to use robots to automate and save labor in the dishwashing process at gyudon stores. At Yoshinoya, which has approximately 1,200 stores, employees manually soak dirty dishes in soaking water, remove them one by one, place them on a washing machine rack, and use the dishwasher to clean them. doing. We aim to use robots to automate the process of extracting a wide variety of dirty dishes from this dirty water and racking them.
Challenges of gyudon stores
At Yoshinoya, one employee handles multiple tasks such as customer service, cooking, serving, and cleaning up, efficiently managing the work. Among them, the “cleaning up” process of tableware is
– Difficult to directly link to added value to customers
・Dirty hands and arms, leading to the risk of rough hands and injury Because of these characteristics, there has been a strong need for automation in this process.
The process of washing dishes
Specifically, employees manually soak each dirty tableware after use in a soaking layer to remove some of the dirt, and then transfer the dishes to the dishwasher rack for cleaning. . At this time, the water that collects in the immersion layer becomes cloudy and dirty over time, and employees must put their hands and arms into this dirty water to grasp the dishes and continue working. Dirty water contains a lot of oil, which can lead to rough hands.Dirty water can cause cracks in the immersion layer of the water, which is so dirty that it is difficult to visually check. There is a strong need for automation because of the risk of injury.
On the other hand, many off-the-shelf fully automatic dishwashers are large machines, which poses challenges such as store space, different layouts, and costs for fast food chains, making it difficult to make decisions when horizontally deploying them across multiple stores.
Solutions using FingerVision technology
The following three points are technically difficult to implement when implementing a robot that meets the needs for automation of cleaning processes.
1. There are many types of tableware that must be handled. 2. If there is a lot of dirt such as oil, it will be slippery and easy to remove after grasping it.
3. It is extremely difficult to recognize dishes submerged in a dirty immersion layer from outside the immersion layer (using an external camera, etc.)
In response to these technological challenges, FingerVision’s visual-tactile robot hand can be used to handle various types of tableware in a versatile manner and avoid falling through “slip detection,” while also being able to detect different types of tableware even in water. By estimating the robot’s position, orientation, distance, depth, etc., it becomes possible to
significantly increase the range of autonomous control of the robot. Based on the acquired image information, it is possible to separate information from various modalities, making the most of the strengths of the visual-tactile robot hand.
Based on the image information obtained from the visual-tactile sensor, various information necessary for handling dishes in wastewater is obtained and used to control the robot.
Demonstration development results
This fiscal year, Yoshinoya and FingerVision are proceeding with basic development focusing on the most difficult process, “the process of removing dirty dishes from dirty water,” and conducting
demonstrations at physical stores. As a result, the time required for racking by employees at the JR Kanda Station store during peak hours (11 a.m. to 2 p.m.) has been reduced from 523 seconds to 289 seconds, assuming that the racking operation is performed all day at a standard store. , we obtained results that contributed to a 101.7% improvement in human-hour productivity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va7kONXM8rk
How it will be done in the future
By expanding the scope of automation, Yoshinoya and FingerVision aim to further improve productivity and improve the working environment, and in the near future, create a future where restaurants around the world no longer need to wash dishes manually. “people”
With the keywords “technology” and “technology,” we accelerate development and improvement with a vision of maximizing the value of “people” by introducing “technology.”
◆Company overview
・Company name: FingerVision Co., Ltd.
・Representative Director: Yuki Nono
・Development base:
・3rd floor, KOGA Building, 3-39-17 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo
・Right One Building 1F, 73-1 Suzaku Hozocho, Shimogyo Ward, Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture
・Established: October 2021
・URL: https://www.fingervision.jp/
・YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRgZuTJvDxjD_7ta03BRQFA ・LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fingervision/
・X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Yuki_Nono_fv
・Email: contact@fingervision.jp
◆Technology overview
Our core technology is the concept of “reproducing tactile sensations based on images (cameras).” By installing it on the fingertips of a robot hand, etc., it becomes possible to perceive tactile sensations (distribution of force and slippage, etc.), and the robot can be controlled as if a human were handling an object using the sensation of the palm of the hand. . It is characterized by its high
functionality (high resolution and multimodality), as well as its excellent economic efficiency and practicality. Although it is called a “tactile” sensor, it is a completely new concept “visual tactile sensor” that also has a (visual) modality to see the object to be grasped, and it has infinite application possibilities, not only for process automation when combined with robots. has.
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