First humanoid robot designed to live with humans

Pepper is the first humanoid robot designed to live with humans. In conjunction with the sales launch, Pepper will not only be able to read emotions, he has evolved to have emotions. The robot’s emotions use emotion functions developed by cocoro SB that enable robots to artificially generate their own emotions. These emotion functions are modeled on the human release of hormones in response to stimuli absorbed by the five senses which in turn generate emotions. In addition to Pepper’s emotion recognition functions, it has capabilities to generate emotions autonomously by processing information from its cameras, touch sensors, accelerometer and other sensors within its 'endocrine-type multi-layer neural network'.

With this emotion function, the emotions are influenced by people’s facial expressions and words, as well as his surroundings, which in turn affects his words and actions. For example, Pepper is at ease when he is around people he knows, happy when he is praised, and gets scared when the lights go down.

Depending on the emotion at the time, he raises his voice or sighs, for example. Pepper’s emotions can be seen on the heart display, which shows different colors and movements. Furthermore, a number of robot apps have been developed to make life fun with an emotional robot. The ‘Pepper's Diary’, for example, links Pepper’s emotions with daily family events that are recorded with pictures and photos.

With the sales launch, approximately 200 robot apps will be available for download from the app store in addition to the pre-installed basic apps. Special robot apps that can be acquired by using ‘cocorogumi’, which are obtained by spending time with Pepper, will also be available. SoftBank plans to expand the lineup of robot apps.