Pepper (robot)

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Pepper

Pepper is a humanoid robot that is programmed to analyze people and their facial expressions and gestures and to react accordingly to these emotional states. It was jointly developed by the French company Aldebaran Robotics SAS and the Japanese telecommunications and media group SoftBank Mobile Corp. developed and is known as "Robot Companion" (companion robot) and "personal robots" (personal robot) designed, but for the time being its use in stores, behind reception desks and in the areas of education and health care to have.

concept

Unlike robots in manufacturing are used, routine tasks done or as pure toys serve Pepper is as informative and communicative "Robot Companion" ( companion robot designed). His appearance - size of a child, round head with disproportionately large eyes in a "cute face" and the way he speaks in a high, childlike voice - follows the aesthetic concept of " kawaii " ( Japanese 可愛 い , for example 'lovable', 'sweet', 'Cute', 'childlike' or 'attractive').

In the long term, the concept is (on the "personal robot" personal robot aligned); For the time being, use in sales rooms is planned for the short term.

Marketing, collaborations and use of Pepper

Development and introduction

Pepper was created jointly by the French company Aldebaran Robotics SAS and the Japanese telecommunications and media group SoftBank Mobile Corp. developed. SoftBank had already acquired 78.5% of the shares in Aldebaran in 2012. In the meantime, the Paris-based company Aldebaran has been completely renamed Softbank Robotics, which completes the takeover process by the Japanese Softbank Group.

The “ world's first personal robot with emotions ” was presented on June 5, 2014 in Urayasu, a suburb of Tokyo . The “awakening of Pepper” ( Pepper's wake up ) was implemented effectively and with emotional effects on the stage.

Marketing and first sale

Pepper in a Softbank store in Akihabara , Japan (2014)

Fumihide Tomizawa, director of SoftBank Robotics Corp., said they wanted to employ Pepper units in SoftBank Mobile's salesrooms to entertain and inform customers. The software of the machine should learn how to deal with customers and the aim is to gain experience for future applications. "Our idea is that Pepper is used in sales rooms, behind reception desks and in the field of education and healthcare."

About a year after Pepper was first introduced, it was announced on July 3, 2015 that 1,000 Pepper units were for sale at a price of 198,000 yen (about 1,450 euros ) each . A monthly amount of 14,800 yen (around 110 euros) was also required for additional services such as constantly improved speech recognition and access to new application software . Nowadays the standardized price is between € 17,000 and € 20,000 (net) depending on the service offer.

On July 30th, 2015 SoftBank Robotics announced the acceptance of orders from Pepper exclusively for companies ("Pepper for Biz"; delivery in October 2015) and a day later the press release followed that all 1000 units were ordered and sold within one minute were.

On May 24, 2016, Pepper was presented to the public at the Innorobo trade fair . Since then, it has been available in Germany and Austria for use in the B2B sector. In addition, Pepper was presented at CeBIT 2017 , among other things , and demonstrated that she can understand and - AI-processed - not only understand English but also German .

Applications and alliances

Pepper is delivered with a basic set of applications, but this alone is practically impossible to use. A specially developed software is required for a practical application . To this end, Softbank has published the interface for application programs so that independent companies and programmers can develop additional applications for Pepper. As early as February 2015, 300 developers each received a Pepper unit to develop new applications for it. Some companies offer complete solutions for this and support with the integration into existing systems. So Pepper can z. As during the consultation of a customer directly from the ERP system to retrieve the current inventory or via external indoor navigation systems determine the location of products and customers, paving the way to show through the business.

The US branch of Aldebaran began working with IBM to give Pepper the ability to propose recipes through the Watson platform .

In June 2015, SoftBank Corp. announced that two Chinese companies, Foxconn Technology (manufacturing) and the trading and communication platform Alibaba (sales), agreed on a joint venture to sell Pepper worldwide.

Pepper and product policy

At the end of October 2014, Nestlé announced that, as part of its product policy and brand engagement , it would use Pepper in 20 stores in Japan from December to sell coffee machines . The use of 1000 more units is planned. Since late summer 2016, Pepper has also been sold in Europe. At the TH Wildau , the robot is used in the library. On February 7, 2020, Pepper co- hosted an edition of the television program 3sat Kulturzeit together with TV host Cécile Schortmann .

Design and technical details

The head and arms of the roughly 1.20 meter tall and 28 kilogram heavy humanoid robot Pepper are reminiscent of Nao , a previous product by Aldebaran. In Pepper's head there are four microphones , two HD cameras (one in place of the mouth, one on the forehead) and a 3D distance sensor (behind the eyes). There is a position- stabilizing gyro sensor in the torso , and the head and five-fingered hands have touch sensors . The base (“leg / foot area”) contains two sonar sensors, six laser scanners , three bumper sensors and another gyro sensor.

NAOqi OS is used as the operating system . Pepper is powered by a lithium-ion battery (30  ampere hours / 795  watt hours ), which allows about 12 hours of autonomy. The touch screen is 10.1 inches (25.7 centimeters) in diameter . Pepper has Wi-Fi ( IEEE 802.11 a / b / g / n, 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz) and Ethernet (x1, 10/100/1000 base T) and can independently search for data on the Internet.

An independent analysis of Pepper's hardware was carried out by the Nikkei Robotics News Crew. Inside Pepper there are compartment-like struts that give the body stability, and several fans cool the motors and the Intel Atom CPU , which is located in its head part. Flexibility in the hip is stabilized by two wide elastic bands.

Movement modules

20 motors ensure mobility: Pepper can move at a maximum of 3 km / h on a flat floor using three concealed all- round wheels located in the foot section . The position of the head can be changed by two motors, as can the shoulders; One motor each controls the wrist and the five-fingered hand, two motors ensure mobility in the hip and one allows mobility in the lower knee area. The hands can hold and carry a maximum weight of 500 grams. The movements generated are flowing and appear lifelike.

Analysis of interlocutors and subsequent reactions

Head area without facial expressions

By using different sensors and the appropriate software, Pepper can identify individual people through facial recognition and is able to recognize basic emotional moods through a rough analysis of facial expressions and gestures , as well as through acoustic analysis of the choice of words and volume of the voice ( affective computing, cognitive computing ). In addition, he is programmed to react accordingly to his human counterpart on the basis of the analysis results of these emotional states.

Since Pepper has itself does not have facial expressions, other solutions were found: The light area around the pupil of his eyes, by LEDs , depending on the situation, different colors - pink, blue, green, white - accept. For example, the blinking effect is achieved through a light / dark / light sequence . In addition, Pepper has a repertoire of gestures and postures that are used according to the analysis of the input, whereby cultural differences, for example for Japan or the United States, can also be taken into account. Finally, the tablet in front of his chest can also visually contribute to the representation of Pepper's "emotional state".

If a conversation is perceived in the room, Pepper moves towards it; he can currently communicate in four languages ​​( English , French , Japanese and Spanish ); further voice applications are planned. If you have any questions that can be answered by searching for data, Pepper can connect to the Internet independently.

Safety precautions

To avoid transport damage, the main moving parts of Pepper are fixed with two plastic plugs. After commissioning, distance sensors in the foot prevent Pepper from colliding with people. There are no distance sensors in the upper area, which means that collisions with the gesticulating arms cannot be avoided. The outer skin is made of polyurethane , yields easily and has no sharp edges. Stabilizers around the chest and legs are designed to prevent Pepper from falling over; if the power supply fails unexpectedly, a blockage prevents Pepper from falling over. If the energy supply is nearing the end, Pepper is able to move towards the charger. Usually, the connection for charging is made manually, but there is also an additional application that allows Pepper to charge itself. Finally, there is a red button - in the neck area under a flexible plastic cover - with which an emergency shutdown can be carried out.

Film documentaries

References and comments

  1. ^ Judith Markowitz: Robots that Talk and Listen: Technology and Social Impact . De Gruyter, 2015, ISBN 978-1-61451-440-4 , p. 41 ( google.com ).
  2. ↑ Who is Pepper? ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In the self-expression of Adebaran Pepper to as "convivial companion" ( social companion serving), so is a robot, which was designed "to live with people," ( robot designed to live with humans to give) them "well-being" ( the well being of humans ) and which has no other (work, cleaning, etc.) functions. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.aldebaran.com
  3. ↑ Antonio Villas-Boas: The next generation of Siri-like assistants will be robots living in your home , Business Insider UK, June 22, 2015; Retrieved September 26, 2015.
  4. ↑ Madison Park: Is this the world's first emo robot? , CNN , June 6, 2015; Retrieved September 26, 2015.
  5. ^ A b c Will Knight: A Japanese Robot Is Learning the American Way. Developed for cute-centric Japan, a robot called Pepper is getting a personality adjustment for its launch in the United States. MIT Technology Review, September 16, 2015; accessed on September 28, 2015.
  6. ↑ a b c SoftBank announces emotional robots to staff its stores and watch your baby (English) - Sam Byford on The Verge , June 5, 2014
  7. ↑ Martin Kölling: Sprint owner Masayochi Son. Visionary with feeling , in: Handelsblatt , No. 108 from June 6th to 9th, 2014, p. 22.
  8. ↑ Legal Notices. In: SoftBank Robotics. Retrieved June 8, 2016 .
  9. ↑ Video of the presentation
  10. ↑ Arnaud Vaulerin: Pepper vient mettre son grain de sel dans les familles japonaises , Liberation, June 19, 2015; accessed October 1, 2015.
  11. ↑ SoftBank Robotics was founded on July 24, 2014 to market Pepper and other robots.
  12. ↑ Household robots from Japan: Pepper should conquer the US market - Spiegel , on September 3, 2014
  13. ↑ Kazuaki Nagata: SoftBank unveils 'historic' robot - Cloud-linked machine reads emotions, can 'learn,' company says. In: The Japan Times . June 5, 2014, accessed June 11, 2014 .
  14. ^ Robots at Work: SoftBank Aims to Bring Pepper to Stores , BloombergBusiness, June 30, 2014; accessed on September 30, 2015.
  15. ↑ This sales price is currently below the production costs for the robot.
  16. ↑ a b SoftBank with 300 robots Pepper à disposition des développeurs , Le Monde, February 23, 2015; accessed October 1, 2015.
  17. ^ SoftBank to Sell Pepper Robot to Consumers , BloombergBusiness, June 18, 2015; accessed on September 30, 2015.
  18. ↑ Home . In: Humanizing Technologies - Pepper the humanoid robot in DE & AT . ( humanizing.com [accessed March 29, 2018]).
  19. ↑ SoftBank to Take Orders for Pepper Enterprise Model - 'Pepper for Biz' - Starting October 1 , SoftBank Robotics Corp., July 30, 2015; accessed on September 30, 2015.
  20. ↑ 1,000 'Pepper' Units for July Sell Out in a Minute , SoftBank Robotics Corp., July 31, 2015; accessed on September 30, 2015.
  21. ↑ Pepper the robot in check: What can the CeBIT star do? - Computer image via YouTube , published March 21, 2017
  22. ↑ Smart helper: robot lady Josie Pepper supports Munich Airport - on YouTube , published on February 15, 2018
  23. ↑ Chris Gallagher and Stephen Coates: SoftBank teams up with Alibaba, Foxconn to sell Pepper robot , Reuters, June 18, 2015; accessed October 1, 2015.
  24. ↑ Nestlé to use humanoid robot to sell Nescafé in Japan , Nestlé press release, October 29, 2014; accessed October 1, 2015.
  25. ↑ Patrik Berger: Nestlé replaces salespeople with robots , Blick, October 30, 2014; accessed on October 2, 2015.
  26. ↑ Susanne Hakenjos: - "Hello, I am the new employee at TH Wildau" , RBB Online, February 11, 2017.
  27. ↑ Aldebaran: More about Pepper ( Memento of the original from September 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; accessed October 1, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.aldebaran.com
  28. ↑ "Pepper" Humanoid Robot Teardown (1) , "Pepper" Humanoid Robot Teardown (2) , "Pepper" Humanoid Robot Teardown (3) , "Pepper" Humanoid Robot Teardown (4) , Nikkei Technology, July 1-5 2015; accessed on September 29, 2015.
  29. ↑ Sharon Oviatt and Philip R. Cohen: the paradigm shift to Multimodality in Contemporary Computer Interfaces . Morgan & Claypool Publishers, 2015, ISBN 978-1-62705-752-3 , pp. 144 ( google.com ).
  30. ^ Mat Smith: Are you ready for your first home robot? Meet Pepper , Engadget, June 12, 2015; accessed October 1, 2015.
  31. ↑ Hannah Feiler: Artificial feelings - When the robot becomes emotional , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 19, 2015; accessed October 1, 2015.
  32. ^ Representation of the Nikkei Robotics News Crew ; accessed on September 29, 2015.