Robotic kitchen scheduling system for cooking multiple food items in parallel in a commercial kitchen and related methods

An automated food preparation system for cooking raw food comprising:

• an enclosure defining a robot workspace;
• a robotic arm and gripper arranged within the robot workspace;
• a plurality of functional stations comprising:
• a dispensing station for dispensing raw food into a basin within the enclosure;
• a food transfer station comprising the basin and arranged within the enclosure to receive the raw food from the dispensing station, and operable to lift the basin, and to transfer the raw food from the basin to a fry basket held by the gripper of the robotic arm;
• a fry station arranged within the enclosure and comprising at least one fryer slot for submerging a fry basket of raw food, and at least one unsubmerged hanger slot;
• and
• a computer comprising:
• a state manager module for maintaining the system state;
• a scheduling module programmed and operable to:
• receive one or more orders for cooked food;
• compute a schedule to control actions of the plurality of functional stations to transfer the raw food to the fry basket, move the fry basket into a fryer slot and fry the raw food, move the fry basket into a hanger slot, dump the cooked food to an egress area for transferring the cooked food from inside the enclosure to outside the enclosure;
• send the schedule to each of the plurality of functional stations for execution;
• and
• wherein the scheduling module computes the schedule based on applying a set predetermined heuristic rules and, where more than one option exists for determining an action, the scheduling module applies a predictor model to predict a cost for each option, and selects an optimal option corresponding to reducing the cost;
• and
• converting a simulated system state event history into the schedule.