Robots Cook German Sausage Breakfast Robots Cook German Sausage Breakfast

If you've ever craved a traditional Bavarian sausage breakfast but were too lazy to cook it yourself, you might be in luck. Scientists at the Technical University Munich in Germany recently got a pair of "robotic roommates" to prepare said meal from scratch, which leads us to ask, are these the best roommates ever?

A recent video released by the university's robotics lab, the Intelligent Autonomous Systems Group, shows two robots, TUM-James and TUM-Rosie (you can call them James and Rosie), preparing breakfast and serving it to a group of observers. Rosie places the sausages in a pot of boiling water, patiently waits until they're ready, scoops them out, and loads the meat in a bowl for serving. Playing sous-chef, James "goes shopping" for ingredients at a simulated grocery store, cuts bread with an electric slicer, and eventually serves the completed meal to the researchers.

Rosie and James rely on some of the latest sensing and processing technologies used to model human multitasking behaviors with artificial intelligence. The footage released by the lab is edited to show the robots' successful moments with their mistakes cut out (the German techno was added in later as well). When the robots fail at a task, they can record their error and improve. While their execution of the Bavarian meal is already impressive enough, these "personal robots" (or PRs in robotics lingo) aren't one-trick ponies. In the past they've made pancakes and fetched beer from a fridge.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbIDPqb_2iM

Image via the Intelligent Autonomous Systems Group