Huawei’s Atlas platform brings AI to cafeteria service, management

Sodexo, one of the world's largest catering service providers, is working with Huawei France to roll out “Seefood,” an intelligent settlement solution. The artificial intelligence technology builds on Huawei Atlas AI software and hardware and combines AI image recognition into the settlement phase to automatically recognize dishes, calculate prices, and complete settlement through cards and mobile terminals.

The Seefood solution uses deep metric learning to accurately recognize each dish in 0.3 seconds, according to Huawei. It learns rapidly and can instantly recognize the distinguishing features of a dish after the canteen operator inputs a new dish image. The system provides an algorithm for updating the features of incorrectly identified samples to improve the recognition rate. In addition, after each recognition, the terminal system automatically adds object detection and classification labels and sends them to the training platform on the cloud. In this way, the number of training samples and the precision of the algorithm models are improved on the go. The more it is used, the smarter the system becomes. 

The Seefood solution also provides real-time nutrition and calorie information. And it not only eliminates the need for manual cashier intervention to drastically cut queuing time, but delivers healthier, tech-driven and more personalized services for diners.

For cafeteria operators, the Seefood solution implements fully automated settlement, and provides order and turnover statistics to visualize operation data, helping them improve service capability and boost operational efficiency. Huawei says that a cafeteria serving 2,000 people can accelerate its settlement speed from 20 seconds per person to just three seconds

The Seefood AI system has been deployed by Sodexo in the cafeteria for Huawei's Shenzhen headquarters, as well as other large enterprises in China, including in hospitals and universities in Guangzhou and Shanghai. Sodexo is planning to promote this solution globally; it could be deployed in Sodexo's cafeterias in West Europe in the first half of 2021. 

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