Reconstituting infant formula powder using a collaborative robot ‘CoBoT’ to mimic human biomechanical movements

Abstract

A key quality characteristic of an infant formula (IF) powder is its ability to reconstitute during bottle preparation to ensure targeted nutrient delivery during feeding. A collaborative robot (CoBoT) was programmed to mimic human biomechanical movements used during preparation of an infant's bottle, i.e. up and down, left to right, swirl and fig. 8 shake motions. Three different IF powder types exhibiting either control, sediment or flecking behaviour were evaluated using the Cobot procedure. Dissolved solids, sediment, colour indices and particle size distribution of reconstituted samples were measured on each sample. The Cobot ‘up and down’ shake motion resulted in higher dissolved solids (DS; 85.3%) and lower sediment (0.8 g) in the control samples compared to those made from powders with sediment (79.8%, 1.8 g) or flecking (80.2%, 5.8 g) properties. The study demonstrated that a CoBoT can be used as part of a novel methodology to quantitatively measure reconstitution properties of IF powders. Industry relevanceInfant formula (IF) companies require an accurate, repeatable and robust method for determining reconstitution properties of finished IF powder, currently this methodology does not exist. Reconstitution properties are important to customers, as they expect to be able to add water to a IF powder and observe a reconstituted liquid that resembles milk. This study evaluates a collaborative robot (CoBoT) to mimic biomechanical movements used by a customer during the preparation of an IF bottle feed. The study demonstrates that a CoBoT can be programmed to reproduce human biomechanical movements and highlights the importance that shake motion and time have on reconstitution properties.