Research progress and technical analysis of dining robots_Journal of Biomedical Engineering

Authors：

 LI Shutong ¹ , GUO Shijie ² , LI Yang ³ , SHI Xiaoshuo ⁴ , LI Yue ² , ZHOU Zhen ¹

1. College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Hebei University, Baoding, Hebei 071002, P. R. China;
2. School of Mechanical Engineering, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, P. R. China;
3. School of Artificial Intelligence, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, P. R. China;
4. Department of Stomatology, Hebei General Hospital, Shijiazhuang 050057, P. R. China;

Corresponding?author：

LI Shutong, Email: shutongli@hbu.edu.cn

Keywords：

Dining robot; Actuator; Trajectory planning; Control method

DOI：

10.7507/1001-5515.202409030

Video：

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Dining robots significantly enhance the quality of life for individuals with upper limb motor impairments by enabling autonomous feeding. This paper systematically reviewed the technological evolution and representative products in this field, with a focused analysis of key technologies including kinematic modeling, trajectory planning, and intelligent control. Future development trends were also discussed, highlighting the need for innovative structural designs, optimized human-robot interaction, and deeper multi-source sensory fusion to advance the field toward more precise and human-like robotic feeding systems.

Citation： LI Shutong, GUO Shijie, LI Yang, SHI Xiaoshuo, LI Yue, ZHOU Zhen. Research progress and technical analysis of dining robots. Journal of Biomedical Engineering, 2026, 43(1): 193-198. doi: 10.7507/1001-5515.202409030 Copy

1.	United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs. World social report 2023: Leaving no one behind in an ageing world. New York: United Nations, 2023.
2.	Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). World Population Prospects 2024: Summary of Results. New York: United Nations, 2024.
3.	張思鋒, 張澤滈. 中國養老服務的人力資源困境與智能養老選擇. 西安交通大學學報(社會科學版), 2023, 43(6): 152-163.
4.	王雅茹, 張凱秀. 智能機器人在醫院感控領域的發展前沿及應用現狀. 現代儀器與醫療, 2022, 28(6): 58-64.
5.	Betriana F, Tanioka R, Gunawan J, et al. Healthcare robots and human generations: Consequences for nursing and healthcare. Collegian, 2022, 29(5): 767-773.
6.	Cheng G, Huang Y, Zhang X, et al. An overview of transfer nursing robot: classification, key technology, and trend. Robot Auton Syst, 2024, 174: 104653.
7.	Soyama R, Ishii S, Fukase A. Selectable operating interfaces of the meal-assistance device “My Spoon”. Adv Rehabil Robot, 2004: 155-163.
8.	Irving M. Obi robot arm gives disabled diners a helping hand[EB/OL]. (2016-07-16)[2024-05-28]. https://newatlas.com/obi-robot-feeding-arm/44394/.
9.	李彥濤, 張立勛, 趙奇, 等. 基于xPC的助餐機器人實時控制系統研究. 中國康復醫學雜志, 2011, 26(4): 363-366.
10.	Roque A, Damodaran S K. Explainable AI for security of human-interactive robots. Int J Hum-Comput Int, 2022, 38(18-20): 1789-1807.
11.	Jiang F, Jia R, Jiang X, et al. Human‐machine interaction methods for minimally invasive surgical robotic arms. Comput Intell Neurosci, 2022, 2022(1): 9434725.
12.	Jiang S, Song W, Zhou Z, et al. Stability analysis of the food delivery robot with suspension damping structure. Heliyon, 2022, 8(12): e12127.
13.	高從軍. 歐洲康復機器人發展現狀及前景. 機器人技術與應用, 1999(5): 1-4.
14.	Mokhtari M, Feki M A, Abdulrazak B, et al. 3 Toward a human-friendly user interface to control an assistive robot in the context of smart homes// Bien Z Z, Stefanov D. Advances in rehabilitation robotics. Lecture Notes in Control and Information Science. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2004, 306: 47-56.
15.	Topping M. Flexibot ?a multi-function general purpose service robot. Ind Robot, 2001, 28(5): 395-401.
16.	Prenzel O, Feuser J, Graser A. Rehabilitation robot in intelligent home environment - software architecture and implementation of a distributed system// Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE 9th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics. Chicago: IEEE, 2005: 530-535.
17.	Layman F D. Self-feeding appliance: US4398857. 1983-08-16.
18.	Kawamura K, Bagchi S. Intelligent robotic systems in service of the disabled. IEEE Trans Rehabil Eng, 1995, 3(1): 14-21.
19.	Osborne W J. Self-feeding apparatus with hover mode: US06592315B2. 2003-07-15.
20.	朱俊杰, 田野, 羅江紅. 可控式用餐機: CN200998019. 2008-01-02.
21.	Pourmohammadali H. Design of a multiple-user intelligent feeding robot for elderly and disabled. Waterloo: University of Waterloo, 2007.
22.	Takahashi Y, Suzukawa S. Intelligent robot human interface using cheek movement for severely handicapped persons. Kanagawa: InTech, 2008: 95-106.
23.	Song W K, Song W J, Kim Y, et al. Usability test of KNRC self-feeding robot// 2013 IEEE 13th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR). Seattle: IEEE, 2013: 1-5.
24.	曾錦翔, 蓋克榮, 楊錦忠. 基于FPGA和ARM的桌面助餐機器人設計. 北京工業職業技術學院學報, 2017, 16(1): 22-25.
25.	Guo M, Shi P, Yu H. Development a feeding assistive robot for eating assist// 2017 2nd Asia-Pacific Conference on Intelligent Robot Systems (ACIRS). Wuhan: IEEE, 2017: 299-304.
26.	Perera C G, Lalitharatne T D, Kiguchi K. EEG-controlled meal assistance robot with camera-based automatic mouth position tracking and mouth open detection// 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). Singapore: IEEE, 2017: 1760-1765.
27.	許朋, 喻洪流, 石萍. 一種智能飲食護理機器人研究. 軟件, 2020, 41(9): 56-59.
28.	Ha J, Kim L. A brain-computer interface-based meal-assist robot control system// 2021 9th International Winter Conference on Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). Gangwon: IEEE, 2021: 1-3.
29.	李抒桐, 肖金壯, 孟恭, 等. 一種輔助進餐機器人的結構設計與性能分析. 生物醫學工程學雜志, 2022, 39(1): 149-157.
30.	Chen R, Kim T K, Hwang J H, et al. A novel integrated spoon-chopsticks mechanism for a meal assistant robotic system. Int J Control Autom Syst, 2022, 20(9): 3019-3031.
31.	Mashrur T, Ghulam Z, French G, et al. Assistive feeding robot for upper limb impairment-Testing and validation. Int J Adv Robot Syst, 2023: 1-13.
32.	Keely M N, Nemlekar H, Losey D P. Kiri-spoon: a soft shape-changing utensil for robot-assisted feeding// 2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). Abu Dhabi: IEEE, 2024: 121-128.
33.	Chen R, Kim T K, Jung B J, et al. Simple and effective strategies to pick up foods for a meal assistant robot integrated with an integrated spoon and chopstick mechanism. Intell Serv Robot, 2025, 18(2): 325-338.
34.	Park D, Hoshi Y, Mahajan H P, et al. Toward active robot-assisted feeding with a general-purpose mobile manipulator: design, evaluation, and lessons learned. Robot Auton Syst, 2020, 124: 1-17.
35.	Schultz J R, Slifkin A B, Yu H, et al. Proof-of-concept: a hands-free interface for robot-assisted self-feeding// 2022 International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR). Rotterdam: IEEE, 2022: 1-6.
36.	Chen B X, Dhupia J S, Xu W. A chewing robot to assist quantitative food analysis: kinematics and fuzzy scheduling control. IEEE-ASME Trans Mechatron, 2023, 28(5): 2908-2918.
37.	Li J, Sun W, Gu X, et al. A method for a compliant robot arm to perform a bandaging task on a swaying arm: A proposed approach. IEEE Robot Autom Mag, 2022, 30(1): 50-61.
38.	Luo Qianyu, Zhang Xiuli, Wang Yuxin. Research on a biomimetic flexible ball joint with variable stiffness for robots. J Mech Robot, 2024, 16(10): 101009.
39.	Wang G, Wen H, Zhou J. Indoor positioning technology and control of mobile home service robot. Sci Program, 2022, 2022(1): 1268393.
40.	Hu Z, Lucchetti F, Schlesinger C, et al. Deploying and evaluating LLMs to program service mobile robots. IEEE Robot Autom Lett, 2024, 9(3): 2853-2860.
41.	Ling H, Shabana A. Effect of forward kinematics on the motion-trajectory oscillations and inertia forces. J Sound Vibr, 2024, 577: 118332.
42.	Dahiya A, Aroyo A M, Dautenhahn K, et al. A survey of multi-agent Human–Robot Interaction systems. Robot Auton Syst, 2023, 161: 104335.
43.	李國寧, 陶亮, 孟京艷, 等. 基于交互力模糊識別的上肢康復機器人模式調整控制策略研究. 生物醫學工程學雜志, 2024, 41(1): 90-97.
44.	Tebyani M, Spaeth A, Cramer N, et al. A geometric kinematic model for flexible voxel-based robots. Soft Robot, 2023, 10(3): 517-526.
45.	Liu L, Gu X, Wang L, et al. Nonsingular predefined‐time dynamic surface control of a flexible‐joint space robot with actuator constraints. Int J Robust Nonlinear Control, 2024, 34(6): 4213-4233.
46.	Hu Y, Zhang S, Chen Y. Trajectory planning method of 6-DOF modular manipulator based on polynomial interpolation. J Comput Methods Sci Eng, 2023, 23(3): 1589-1600.
47.	Zeng C, Li S, Chen Z, et al. Multi-fingered robot hand compliant manipulation based on vision-based demonstration and adaptive force control. IEEE Trans Neural Netw Learn Syst, 2022, 34(9): 5452-5463.
48.	Peng J, Wu H, Zhang C, et al. Modeling, cooperative planning and compliant control of multi-arm space continuous robot for target manipulation. Appl Math Model, 2023, 121: 690-713.
49.	Alexandru I A D, Mandru D, Fenesan A C. Computer-vision based feeding robot for disabled people// 2024 IEEE International Conference And Exposition On Electric And Power Engineering (EPEi). Lasi: IEEE, 2024: 85-88.
50.	Parikh P, Trivedi R, Dave J, et al. Design and development of a low-cost vision-based 6 DoF assistive feeding robot for the aged and specially-abled people. IETE J Res, 2023, 70(2): 1716-1744.
51.	Gordon E K, Jenamani R K, Nanavati A, et al. An adaptable, safe, and portable robot-assisted feeding syste// Companion of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction. Boulder: ACM, 2024: 74-76.

1. United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs. World social report 2023: Leaving no one behind in an ageing world. New York: United Nations, 2023.
2. Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). World Population Prospects 2024: Summary of Results. New York: United Nations, 2024.
3. 張思鋒, 張澤滈. 中國養老服務的人力資源困境與智能養老選擇. 西安交通大學學報(社會科學版), 2023, 43(6): 152-163.
4. 王雅茹, 張凱秀. 智能機器人在醫院感控領域的發展前沿及應用現狀. 現代儀器與醫療, 2022, 28(6): 58-64.
5. Betriana F, Tanioka R, Gunawan J, et al. Healthcare robots and human generations: Consequences for nursing and healthcare. Collegian, 2022, 29(5): 767-773.
6. Cheng G, Huang Y, Zhang X, et al. An overview of transfer nursing robot: classification, key technology, and trend. Robot Auton Syst, 2024, 174: 104653.
7. Soyama R, Ishii S, Fukase A. Selectable operating interfaces of the meal-assistance device “My Spoon”. Adv Rehabil Robot, 2004: 155-163.
8. Irving M. Obi robot arm gives disabled diners a helping hand[EB/OL]. (2016-07-16)[2024-05-28]. https://newatlas.com/obi-robot-feeding-arm/44394/.
9. 李彥濤, 張立勛, 趙奇, 等. 基于xPC的助餐機器人實時控制系統研究. 中國康復醫學雜志, 2011, 26(4): 363-366.
10. Roque A, Damodaran S K. Explainable AI for security of human-interactive robots. Int J Hum-Comput Int, 2022, 38(18-20): 1789-1807.
11. Jiang F, Jia R, Jiang X, et al. Human‐machine interaction methods for minimally invasive surgical robotic arms. Comput Intell Neurosci, 2022, 2022(1): 9434725.
12. Jiang S, Song W, Zhou Z, et al. Stability analysis of the food delivery robot with suspension damping structure. Heliyon, 2022, 8(12): e12127.
13. 高從軍. 歐洲康復機器人發展現狀及前景. 機器人技術與應用, 1999(5): 1-4.
14. Mokhtari M, Feki M A, Abdulrazak B, et al. 3 Toward a human-friendly user interface to control an assistive robot in the context of smart homes// Bien Z Z, Stefanov D. Advances in rehabilitation robotics. Lecture Notes in Control and Information Science. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2004, 306: 47-56.
15. Topping M. Flexibot ?a multi-function general purpose service robot. Ind Robot, 2001, 28(5): 395-401.
16. Prenzel O, Feuser J, Graser A. Rehabilitation robot in intelligent home environment - software architecture and implementation of a distributed system// Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE 9th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics. Chicago: IEEE, 2005: 530-535.
17. Layman F D. Self-feeding appliance: US4398857. 1983-08-16.
18. Kawamura K, Bagchi S. Intelligent robotic systems in service of the disabled. IEEE Trans Rehabil Eng, 1995, 3(1): 14-21.
19. Osborne W J. Self-feeding apparatus with hover mode: US06592315B2. 2003-07-15.
20. 朱俊杰, 田野, 羅江紅. 可控式用餐機: CN200998019. 2008-01-02.
21. Pourmohammadali H. Design of a multiple-user intelligent feeding robot for elderly and disabled. Waterloo: University of Waterloo, 2007.
22. Takahashi Y, Suzukawa S. Intelligent robot human interface using cheek movement for severely handicapped persons. Kanagawa: InTech, 2008: 95-106.
23. Song W K, Song W J, Kim Y, et al. Usability test of KNRC self-feeding robot// 2013 IEEE 13th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR). Seattle: IEEE, 2013: 1-5.
24. 曾錦翔, 蓋克榮, 楊錦忠. 基于FPGA和ARM的桌面助餐機器人設計. 北京工業職業技術學院學報, 2017, 16(1): 22-25.
25. Guo M, Shi P, Yu H. Development a feeding assistive robot for eating assist// 2017 2nd Asia-Pacific Conference on Intelligent Robot Systems (ACIRS). Wuhan: IEEE, 2017: 299-304.
26. Perera C G, Lalitharatne T D, Kiguchi K. EEG-controlled meal assistance robot with camera-based automatic mouth position tracking and mouth open detection// 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). Singapore: IEEE, 2017: 1760-1765.
27. 許朋, 喻洪流, 石萍. 一種智能飲食護理機器人研究. 軟件, 2020, 41(9): 56-59.
28. Ha J, Kim L. A brain-computer interface-based meal-assist robot control system// 2021 9th International Winter Conference on Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). Gangwon: IEEE, 2021: 1-3.
29. 李抒桐, 肖金壯, 孟恭, 等. 一種輔助進餐機器人的結構設計與性能分析. 生物醫學工程學雜志, 2022, 39(1): 149-157.
30. Chen R, Kim T K, Hwang J H, et al. A novel integrated spoon-chopsticks mechanism for a meal assistant robotic system. Int J Control Autom Syst, 2022, 20(9): 3019-3031.
31. Mashrur T, Ghulam Z, French G, et al. Assistive feeding robot for upper limb impairment-Testing and validation. Int J Adv Robot Syst, 2023: 1-13.
32. Keely M N, Nemlekar H, Losey D P. Kiri-spoon: a soft shape-changing utensil for robot-assisted feeding// 2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). Abu Dhabi: IEEE, 2024: 121-128.
33. Chen R, Kim T K, Jung B J, et al. Simple and effective strategies to pick up foods for a meal assistant robot integrated with an integrated spoon and chopstick mechanism. Intell Serv Robot, 2025, 18(2): 325-338.
34. Park D, Hoshi Y, Mahajan H P, et al. Toward active robot-assisted feeding with a general-purpose mobile manipulator: design, evaluation, and lessons learned. Robot Auton Syst, 2020, 124: 1-17.
35. Schultz J R, Slifkin A B, Yu H, et al. Proof-of-concept: a hands-free interface for robot-assisted self-feeding// 2022 International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR). Rotterdam: IEEE, 2022: 1-6.
36. Chen B X, Dhupia J S, Xu W. A chewing robot to assist quantitative food analysis: kinematics and fuzzy scheduling control. IEEE-ASME Trans Mechatron, 2023, 28(5): 2908-2918.
37. Li J, Sun W, Gu X, et al. A method for a compliant robot arm to perform a bandaging task on a swaying arm: A proposed approach. IEEE Robot Autom Mag, 2022, 30(1): 50-61.
38. Luo Qianyu, Zhang Xiuli, Wang Yuxin. Research on a biomimetic flexible ball joint with variable stiffness for robots. J Mech Robot, 2024, 16(10): 101009.
39. Wang G, Wen H, Zhou J. Indoor positioning technology and control of mobile home service robot. Sci Program, 2022, 2022(1): 1268393.
40. Hu Z, Lucchetti F, Schlesinger C, et al. Deploying and evaluating LLMs to program service mobile robots. IEEE Robot Autom Lett, 2024, 9(3): 2853-2860.
41. Ling H, Shabana A. Effect of forward kinematics on the motion-trajectory oscillations and inertia forces. J Sound Vibr, 2024, 577: 118332.
42. Dahiya A, Aroyo A M, Dautenhahn K, et al. A survey of multi-agent Human–Robot Interaction systems. Robot Auton Syst, 2023, 161: 104335.
43. 李國寧, 陶亮, 孟京艷, 等. 基于交互力模糊識別的上肢康復機器人模式調整控制策略研究. 生物醫學工程學雜志, 2024, 41(1): 90-97.
44. Tebyani M, Spaeth A, Cramer N, et al. A geometric kinematic model for flexible voxel-based robots. Soft Robot, 2023, 10(3): 517-526.
45. Liu L, Gu X, Wang L, et al. Nonsingular predefined‐time dynamic surface control of a flexible‐joint space robot with actuator constraints. Int J Robust Nonlinear Control, 2024, 34(6): 4213-4233.
46. Hu Y, Zhang S, Chen Y. Trajectory planning method of 6-DOF modular manipulator based on polynomial interpolation. J Comput Methods Sci Eng, 2023, 23(3): 1589-1600.
47. Zeng C, Li S, Chen Z, et al. Multi-fingered robot hand compliant manipulation based on vision-based demonstration and adaptive force control. IEEE Trans Neural Netw Learn Syst, 2022, 34(9): 5452-5463.
48. Peng J, Wu H, Zhang C, et al. Modeling, cooperative planning and compliant control of multi-arm space continuous robot for target manipulation. Appl Math Model, 2023, 121: 690-713.
49. Alexandru I A D, Mandru D, Fenesan A C. Computer-vision based feeding robot for disabled people// 2024 IEEE International Conference And Exposition On Electric And Power Engineering (EPEi). Lasi: IEEE, 2024: 85-88.
50. Parikh P, Trivedi R, Dave J, et al. Design and development of a low-cost vision-based 6 DoF assistive feeding robot for the aged and specially-abled people. IETE J Res, 2023, 70(2): 1716-1744.
51. Gordon E K, Jenamani R K, Nanavati A, et al. An adaptable, safe, and portable robot-assisted feeding syste// Companion of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction. Boulder: ACM, 2024: 74-76.

Journal of Biomedical Engineering

Research progress and technical analysis of dining robots

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