SoftBank is a Japanese tech firm that put up their first emotion sensing robot, Pepper for sale on 20th June. According to the company, Pepper is the world’s first personal robot that is capable of reading a person’s emotions and in response shows his own emotions.
Pepper was unveiled last year and has been described as an emotional robot instead of being functional. SoftBank states that the robot is aimed at helping people to grow socially.
Pepper’s emotions are based upon and get influenced by a number of factors, such as facial expressions of users, what people say and the surroundings of robot. A couple of different sensors are used for monitoring this, for example; accelerometers, cameras and touch sensors. The inputs from these sensors subsequently affects Pepper’s actions and words. It is capable of raising its voice based upon its emotion at that time. Prevailing emotions are also displayed on the display.
SoftBank also said that Pepper is usually at ease when it’s surrounded by folks it knows and is happy when praised. It gets scared when lights are turned off and according to firm, the responses of Pepper are modeled after the release of hormones that takes place in humans when they react to stimuli perceived by the senses.
Pepper can speak French, English, Spanish and Japanese while more languages have been promised as well. There will be about 200 robot apps available from a dedicated app store. It weighs in at 29kg and measures (48 x 19 x 17 in). It contains a lithium-ion battery that can allow for a 12-hour operational time. Only 1,000 units have been manufactured and cost $1,610 each. Check out the video below for more details:
