Pepper, A Humanoid Personal Robot Featuring Emotion Recognition

Pepper is a humanoid personal robot jointly developed by SoftBank Mobile and Aldebaran Robotics featuring emotion recognition and the capability of self-improvement and adaptation. According to their press release, this makes Pepper the world’s first combination of those qualities. Though Pepper is designed to live with humans, and that’s the eventual goal, he is currently greeting customers in SoftBank Mobile stores.

Pepper knows what state you are in, using his knowledge of universal emotions (joy, surprise, anger, doubt and sadness) and his ability to analyse your facial expression, your body language and the words you use. He will guess your mood, and will even adapt to it. For example, he will try to cheer you up by playing your favourite song!

photos via Aldebaran Robotics