Robots are taking up more and more space in our kitchens.
And now scientists from the University of Cambridge, England, have unveiled a new type of machine.
A taste robot.
“The enormous advantage of the taster robot is that it is objective.
It is not affected by mood or personal preference, and it will always remember all the dishes it has tasted before,” says Grezgorz Sochacki, an engineer at the University of Cambridge, who worked on this prototype.
At the moment, the taster function is only in its first version.
“The sensor reacts to the salinity of a dish, the humidity or even its consistency,” he adds.
“We can use this robot, for example, to try to reproduce your favorite dish.
Or to see the difference between two dishes” explains the engineer.
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But behind this innovation, there is a scientific objective.
“We don't know much about how taste perception works,” analyzes Professor Fumiya Iida, head of the robotics laboratory at the University of Cambridge.
We like to eat, we like to taste, but we really don't know how we actually taste and how we can understand it from a scientific point of view”.
The next step will be to teach the robot to recognize sugar and spices.
With a few decades from now the hope that the robot will be completely autonomous, and will offer dishes according to the tastes of its owner.