Flying Robots

SINGAPORE: Restaurant-goers in Singapore can expect to be served by autonomous flying robots – the world’s first commercial attempt – by the end of next year.

Infinium-Serve, the autonomous flying robotic waiters, will be first launched at one of Timbre Group’s five outlets in Singapore. Infinium Robotics CEO Woon Junyang estimated the project to cost a “low seven-figure sum” for the five outlets, subject to final negotiations and certain variables of the actual deployment of the robots.

Timbre Group has recently launched two new ventures in Singapore in line with its mission to become a comprehensive music lifestyle group. What started out as an idea to establish live music venues championing local musicians has grown into a chain of multiple bars and restaurants with nightly performances, a catalogue of venues that includes recent additions Timbre@Gillman and Barber Shop by Timbre. After successful installations in previous Timbre Group venues, D.A.S. Audio was once again called on to guarantee powerful and versatile sound reinforcement.

Infinium Robotics signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Timbre Group on Oct 31. Both companies are seeking productivity-related government grants to help offset deployment costs.

Infinium Robotics provides precise indoor UAV applications with state-of-the-art technologies. Intelligent and adaptive algorithm developed in-house with smart trajectory planning enables precise flight path and positioning precision of up to 1 cm accuracy in an indoor environment.

Infinium Robotics provides precise outdoor UAV applications with state of the art technologies. Suitable for a GPS-denied environment, our applications eliminates the need for GPS-positioning and can achieve precise positioning outdoors of up to 2 cm accuracy.

Mr Woon said he is confident that such robotic solutions will help alleviate the Singapore’s labour crunch. Introducing this technology into restaurants would take away mundane tasks of serving food and drinks, and allow human waiters to focus on higher-value tasks such as getting feedback from customers, he said.

“This will result in an enhanced dining experience which will eventually lead to increased sales and revenue for the restaurants,” he added.

A prototype of Infinium-Serve was showcased to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the inaugural launch of the National Productivity Month in early October.