Food texture estimation using robotic mastication simulator equipped with teeth and tongue

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a food texture estimation system using a robotic mastication simulator equipped with teeth and a tongue. On the basis of the human oral function, we first introduce the mastication robot with which we can measure biting force and tongue pressure simultaneously during artificial mastication. We then develop a texture estimation system that estimates the value of human sensory evaluation from feature values of measured data. Finally, we describe an experiment where textures of doughnuts are estimated. The experimental results suggest that the proposed method can accurately estimate the value of human sensory evaluation when using both the biting force and the tongue pressure.