AI-Aided Tooling for Domestic Robots

Research in robotics has been quickly shifting from industrial applications such as manufacturing to domestic services such as cooking, cleaning, and organizing. A current focus of developing domestic robots is on generalist object manipulation capabilities, especially when empowered by the latest break-throughs in artificial intelligence (AI). Compared to industrial robots, design of domestic robots faces greater challenges in tooling. Meanwhile, the use of AI has been mostly limited to perception and control. This paper discusses using generalist AI to aid the tooling for domestic robots. The study is based on a particular design philosophy that aims at democratizing domestic robots with affordability, reliability, and durability. A series of unique prompting techniques have been developed to make the most of the Internet-scale knowledge of AI and their available reasoning capability. Robotic cooking of a conventional American breakfast is used to explain the proposed techniques. Physical prototyping and validation have been conducted.