Imagine stirring a salad, turning food in a pan and cutting an ingredient. One tool would be awkward for all three jobs. Researchers designed a robot interface that changes ordinary tools without replacing the whole arm. The work appeared on October 29 and describes a laboratory system rather than a ready-made kitchen assistant.

A connector stays on the robot while adapters attach to different tools. Small touch sensors^[1] in the adapters report physical contact. A camera shows where objects are, but an image alone does not always reveal whether a tool is pressing against something. That is why the researchers added touch information.

People first demonstrated actions by remotely controlling the robot. A learning program then used those examples to choose movements. In the reported tests, touch increased success by 15 to 25 percentage points compared with learning from images alone. The number describes the authors' selected tasks, not every possible tool or food.

The robot still needs reliable attachments, safe contact and ways to recover when a tool slips or a task changes. It has not shown that it can cook a complete meal by itself in an unfamiliar kitchen. The researchers call their system SwapBot.