French fries and onion rings are high-tech thanks to a company in Southern California.
Miso Robotics Inc in Pasadena has started rolling out its Flippy 2 robot, which automates the process of deep frying potatoes, onions, and other foods.
A big robotic arm like those in auto plants - directed by cameras and artificial intelligence - takes frozen French fries and other foods out of a freezer, dips them into hot oil and deposits the ready-to- serve product into a tray.
Flippy 2 can cook multiple meals with different recipes simultaneously, reducing the need for catering staff, and speed up order delivery at drive-through windows, says Miso.
In an interview, Miso Chief Executive Mike Bell said when an order comes in through the restaurant system, it automatically spits out the instructions to Flippy.
Bell said it does it faster, more accurately, more reliably and happier than most humans do it.
Miso said it took five years to develop Flippy and recently made it commercially available.
The name of the robot comes from Flippy, an earlier robot designed to flip burgers. Miso's team finished the machine, but they realized that there was a tighter bottleneck at the fry station, particularly late at night.
Bell said Flippy 2 makes a splash at first.
When we put a robot into a location, the customers that come up and order, they all take pictures, they take videos, they ask a lot of questions. And then the second time they come in, they seem not to notice it, just take it for granted, he said.
Miso engineers can watch Flippy 2 robots working in real time on a big screen, enabling them to help troubleshoot any problems that come up. Bell said that a number of restaurant chains have adopted the robotic fry cook, including Jack in the Box in San Diego, White Castle in the Midwest and CaliBurger on the West Coast.
Bell said three other big U.S. fast-food chains have put Flippy 2 to work, but they are hesitant to advertise because of the sensitivities of perceptions that robots are taking jobs away from humans.
The tasks the humans are most happy to offload are tasks like the fry station. Bell said that they're delighted to have the help so they can do other things.
Miso Robotics has around 90 engineers who work on computer code or prototypes. One of its next projects is Sippy, a drink-making robot that will take an order from a customer, pour drinks, put lids on them, insert a straw and group them together.
Bell said that some day people will walk into a restaurant and look at a robot and say, 'Hey, remember the old days when humans used to do that kind of thing? It's coming. And those days are coming.