Japanese operator SoftBank Mobile and Aldebaran Robotics are together developing Pepper, which they say will be the world’s first personal robot capable of reading emotions. The robot will be commercially available in Japan from SoftBank Mobile in February 2015 for a base price of JPY 198,000. From 6 June, visitors to the SoftBank Omotesando and Ginza stores will be able to talk and interact. SoftBank Mobile plans to subsequently station Pepper at more of its stores nationwide.
The humanoid Pepper robot will be able to take his surroundings into consideration and react pro-actively using proprietary algorithms. The robot also comes equipped with capabilities and an interface that enables communication with people, including advanced voice recognition technology, superior joint technology to realise graceful gestures, and emotion recognition that analyses expressions and voice tones.
The idea is to enable people to communicate with Pepper in a natural way, as they would with friends and family. The robot will be able to make jokes, dance and amuse people thanks to a wide variety of entertainment capabilities, some developed in cooperation with Yoshimoto Robotics Laboratory.
Capabilities that help Pepper evolve by learning through daily interactions with people are also being planned for the commercial launch timing. Capability expansion will also come about through a number of robot apps, including motion, conversation and sensors.
The Aldebaran software development kit (SDK) will be provided for creating robot apps, and in September, a Tech Festival in Tokyo is under planning to provide technical specifications, development methods and other details.
Pepper will be able to judge situations with an array of sensors, incorporatating proprietary algorithms to control applications autonomously. It will have 12 continuous hours of battery life. It will be able to acquire various types of information and synchronize with cloud-based databases through an internet connection. Sensors will be used to avoid collisions and autobalance to prevent falls, among other various safety features. More capabilities will be available through new types of robot apps.
