It can distinguish numerous types of wines and food

Sep 5, 2006 08:14 GMT  ·  By

Have you ever thought of a robot sommelier that would bring the perfect bottle of wine to your table? Well, the scientists have come up with a rather interesting robot that is able to store no less than dozens of tastes of food and wines and, if you will be its owner, you will also be able to set it in order to recognize your favorite type of wine and food.

How does it work? It uses its arm to detect via a complex infrared sensor system the exact type of wine that is served and the meal that you are preparing to eat. More precisely, an infrared beam pierces the food or wine and then, after the robot has analyzed its target by determining the diverse wavelengths of light that are absorbed, it tells you directly the results by using a built-in voice function.

The robot is a small one, featuring only 2ft-tall or 0.6m and it has been developed by NEC System Technologies and Mie University.

Hideo Shimazu, director of the NEC System Technology Research Laboratory in Japan, told Associated Press that: "There are all kinds of robots out there doing many different things. But we decided to focus on wine because that seemed like a real challenge."

However, the little green and white robot has a limited know-how, as there are numerous types of wines, but our friend will distinguish only a few of them.

Photo Credits - BBC