Burger Flipping Robot Replaces Workers At Fast Food Restaurant

A Californian fast food restaurant has introduced a robot that flips and cooks burgers, replacing human workers at the grill.

The Telegraph reports that the robot, named Flippy, was developed by Miso Robotics and began its first day on the job at Caliburger this week. “Much like self-driving vehicles, our system continuously learns from its experiences to improve over time,” said David Zito, CEO of Miso Robotics.

Zito continued, “Though we are starting with the relatively ‘simple’ task of cooking burgers, our proprietary AI software allows our kitchen assistants to be adaptable and therefore can be trained to help with almost any dull, dirty or dangerous task in a commercial kitchen — whether it’s frying chicken, cutting vegetables or final plating.”

Flippy is slightly limited in its current form; the robot can flip burgers and use built-in cameras and sensors to determine when the burger is cooked before placing the burger on a bun. However Flippy has not been developed to add sauces or condiments, a human worker must be available to perform those tasks.

This introduction of robots to the kitchen follows on the heels of restaurant chains including Wendy’s rolling out self-order kiosks to their stores.

Caliburger aims to have Flippy robots installed in 50 of their restaurants worldwide by 2019. The company stated that the benefits of using Flippy over a human worker include making “food faster, safer and with fewer errors.”