A robot that can make pizza: roll out the dough, add toppings, put it in the oven and rotate it when necessary.
It may be possible with RoDyMan, the “pizzaiolo robot”: a project devised by Bruno Siciliano, from Naples, a robotics expert and head of the Laboratory of Robotics Research, known as “Prisma Lab.”
It is part of a larger project that is trying to create a service robot that will be able to replicate human activities, from helping the elderly to the repair of human limbs.
RoDyMan will have a torso, two arms and light hands with multiple fingers, but no legs; it will be mounted on a two-wheeled platform. The head will be equipped a with stereoscopic camera and a system of lights. It will have proximity, field and touch sensors. “The interaction with humans is at the center of the project,” says Siciliano.
In the next five years, the challenge is to have RoDyMan make pizzas, he says.
But are they going to be as good as Neapolitan pizzas? "That’s practically impossible! However, we are going to hire one of best pizza chefs in town to learn from him. We will have him wear a biokinetic suit equipped with sensors and a 3D motion capture system.”
