Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries has opened a restaurant staffed by robots. The operation will provide the company with data to improve robot development to help ease labor shortages.

The restaurant is located in the machinery maker's research facility near Haneda Airport in Tokyo and is equipped with seven robots.

Customers place their orders by smartphone. Robots in the kitchen heat up packs of soup or curry and pour them into cups. They also use microwaves for rice.

Other robots deliver meals to tables and serve them using two arms. They also collect empty plates. Payments and garbage are handled by human staff.

Kawasaki Heavy aims to use customer feedback to improve the robot service quality. It also plans to apply what it learns to resolving labor shortages in nursing care.