Nieuwe Japanse robot herkent emoties

Origineel gepubliceerd op de site van RVO.

Samenvatting

Op 5 juni 2014 kondigden het Japanse mobiele telefoonbedrijf Softbank Mobile en Aldebaran Robotics, een Frans robotdochterbedrijf en onderdeel van de Softbank Group, ’s werelds eerste commerciële humanoïde robot aan die menselijke emoties herkent.

De robot heet ‘Pepper’ en is door beide bedrijven gezamenlijk ontwikkeld. Softbank Mobile zal de nieuwe robot voor ongeveer € 1400 in februari 2015 op de markt brengen in Japan. Vanaf 6 juni kan het publiek in 2 Softbank-winkels in Tokio kennis maken met Pepper.

Pepper is a humanoid robot that uses an “emotional engine” and a cloud-based artificial intelligence system allowing it to analyze gestures, expressions and voice tones. With these technologies people can enjoy communicating with Pepper in a natural way, just like they would be with friends and family. In addition, Pepper can entertain and amuse people by dancing and joking, co-developed by Japanese Yoshimoto Robotics Laboratory, Inc. Furthermore, a variety of applications (robot apps) are scheduled to be created by developers all over the world to expand Pepper’s capabilities. Aldebaran software development kit (SDK) will be provided for crating robot apps.

Main features of Pepper (planned) are:

•Judges situations with an array of sensors, incorporates proprietary algorithms to control applications autonomously

•Estimates emotions based on expressions and voice tones using emotion recognition functions

•Over 12 continuous hours of battery life

•Articulates gracefully with a high degree of freedom thanks to proprietarily developed joints

•Can acquire various types of information and synchronize with cloud-based databases through an Internet connection

•Uses sensors to avoid collisions and has autobalance to prevent falls, among other various safety features

•Capabilities are expandable by installing various new types of robot apps

•Aldebaran’s software development kit (SDK) will be provided for a wide range of applications, from simple movements to advanced customization using widely available programming languages

Figure 1. Pepper (source: SoftBank)

The SoftBank Group announced its next-30 Year Vision in 2010 mentioning its interest in robot technology as a means to improve quality of life. SoftBank made its first equity investment in French Aldebarab in 2012, later making it a SoftBank Group company sharing a common vision between them. SoftBank also announced Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group, a manufacturing giant that assembles Apple iPhones, will be a partner in making the Pepper. Pepper will be commercially available in Japan from SoftBank Mobile in February 2015. The price will be about 1400 euro. From June 6, 2014, visitors will be able to enjoy talking and interacting with Pepper at two major SoftBank stores in Japan.