University of Cambridge's robotic chef learns cooking recipes

A robotic chef has successfully made salads after watching videos of people demonstrating the recipes.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge programmed the robot with a cook book of eight simple salad recipes.

The robot was also able to come up with a ninth recipe on its own.

"We wanted to see whether we could train a robot chef to learn in the same incremental way that humans can," said researcher Grzegorz Sochacki.

The robotic chef was able to watch 16 videos, each one of a human demonstrating a recipe, before being able to identify which recipe it was, and then prepare and make it.

The robot was able to prepare and make eight recipes, as well as making a ninth of its own

Mr Sochacki said the recipes were not "complex" and were "essentially chopped fruits and vegetables".

The robot recognised the correct recipe 93% of the time, and it was able to detect slight variations in each recipe, like making a double portion or normal human error.

Mr Sochacki said: "Our robot isn't interested in the sorts of food videos that go viral on social media - they're simply too hard to follow."

"But as these robot chefs get better and faster at identifying ingredients in food videos, they might be able to use sites like YouTube to learn a whole range of recipes," he added.