A robot shaped like a cat is delighting diners at a Japanese restaurant in Edinburgh, where she sings to them and demands affection. The Maki & Ramen eatery introduced Miyako, operated by sensors, to all its tables this month. Unlike other commercial robots that perform menial tasks, she is designed to interact with people and has a personality all its own. She goes to each table and sings happy birthday, or lets them pet her. Effie Koutroumanou, the restaurant’s marketing director, says she has received a great response from customers. Miyako also has a kitty cat’s attitude, purring and displaying annoyance when people pet her ears too much.
She can also recognise if plates or cups have been lifted off her tray, so she returns them to the kitchen. Pudu Robotics, which created the BellaBot, explains that its feline appearance and a range of adorable facial expressions make it easy to interact with. It has a touch sensor, so customers can scratch or stroke it, and it responds with different facial expressions depending on how it’s treated. She can also talk, and the company has programmed her with a number of phrases, including a cheery “happy birthday” song.
The 2,000 BellaBots in use at restaurants cat robot waiter around the world have a tablet display that shows off its cat-like face and adds “meow” to the end of some of its set phrases, but it’s Miyako’s antics that have caught people’s attention. She’s not the first cat-shaped food delivery robot to go viral, but she has a lot more fans than her predecessors.
Kitty bots have become something of a phenomenon in Japan, where family-run restaurants such as Gusto and Fat Goanna Cafe have embraced them for their cuteness. They cost $16,000 each, but they save staff from having to carry drinks and food on trays. Their avoidance systems are programmed to dodge staff and bat their eyelashes at guests, as well as utter happy birthday in a voice that would fit on Sesame Street.
They haven’t all got it right, though. When Twitter user kchap was at Gusto, she captured an instance in which two of the lovable machines collided. The video quickly went viral, with many commenting on how adorably the kitty robots fought over who would take ownership of the beer they had just brought to the table.
It’s possible that the kitty bots were simply experiencing a mechanical failure of their avoidance system, or that congested restaurant lanes made it difficult to stay clear of one another. Regardless, the battle was a hit, and some even thought the robots might be making a statement about territoriality in the real world, rather than just a fictitious premise.
The restaurant’s other two cat-shaped robots, called HolaBot and Amie, have been performing their usual duties, delivering food to tables and returning dirty plates to the kitchen. The company has also developed a robot that looks and acts like a dog, which was spotted at Brooklyn dim sum spot Dimmer & Summer this month.