PUDU KettyBot

KettyBot is Pudu Robotics' answer to the question of what a service robot should do on the way back to the kitchen. Where the company's better-known BellaBot is a tray carrier with a cat's face, KettyBot is built around a large 18.5-inch screen mounted on its front, and the robot earns its keep twice: once by delivering food or goods, and once by playing menu promotions, product videos and greetings to everyone it passes. Pudu launched it in 2021 and it has since been put to work by KFC, Pizza Hut, Walmart and MediaMarkt, which says something about where the category actually sells - not in the restaurants of the future, but in the ones already fighting for attention at the door. The hardware is deliberately narrower than a tray robot. Three detachable trays take 10 kg each, 30 kg in total, on shelves of 410 x 500 mm with anti-spill edges, and the forward-leaning C-shaped body lets the machine pass a gap of only 55 cm - the practical figure that decides whether a robot can work a full dining room or only its main aisle. Navigation is Pudu's dual-SLAM stack, combining laser SLAM with visual SLAM, and battery life is quoted at over eight hours. In January 2024 Pudu released a revision, KettyBot Pro, which keeps the concept and sharpens the two things that limited it: an ultra-wide-angle RGBD depth camera brings the minimum clearance down from 55 cm to 52 cm, and a visual tray-inspection system lets the robot see for itself whether a customer has taken their order, rather than waiting to be tapped. The Pro also opens expressions, voice and screen content to editing through the PUDU Open Platform. Be careful with third-party specification sheets for this robot: several distributors publish the base model's 30 kg and three trays under the Pro name, and others attribute BellaBot's four trays and 40 kg to it. Pudu does not publish a list price for either version; distributor quotes for KettyBot Pro run to about USD 14,000, or roughly USD 395 a month on a rental plan.

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