While most people can peel a banana without thinking about it, incorporating the same capability into a robot is more difficult than you might think.
The peeling of a banana is very delicate. Every time you peel a banana, your brain is making a series of decisions, based on the shape, size, ripeness, and overall condition of the fruit.
A machine built by a team at the University of Tokyo does a good job at peeling fruit, though it takes about three minutes to complete the process.
In the video, you can see it in action.
The contraption has two arms and a hand at the end. As one hand lifts the banana, the other moves in to peel the first section of the fruit.
The second section is a little more difficult, as the hand has less skin to grab, but after a few seconds, the robot gets its goal. The hand holding the banana is in the way of the third section of skin. A human would use their fingers to quickly turn a banana in their hand. The robotic hand was unable to change the position of the banana, so it only partially completed the third and final peel.
The data shows that the robot only succeeds in peeling a banana 57% of the time, suggesting there is still a lot of work to be done to hone its skills.
The Tokyo team used data from human demonstrations of the banana peeling process to train its robot.
The team wants to improve the robot's speed and reliability in order to apply it to other delicate tasks. The restaurant trade is experimenting with robot-powered food preparation in order to address labor shortage issues.
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