Jul 20, 2016

Panasonic Starts Accepting Orders for Robotic Solutions Utilizing Pepper

Robot behavioral programming centered on work activities creates collaborative spaces for people and robots utilizing Panasonic's ICT technology.

Tokyo, Japan - Panasonic Solution Technology Co., Ltd. (President: Hisashi Ogawa, Head Office: Minato-ku, Tokyo) recently announced that the company had begun to accept orders on July 8, 2016, for Robotic Solutions Utilizing Pepper.

In recent years, reductions in the working age population have increased the need to use robots as a means of improving corporate productivity. The accumulated sales of "Pepper," the world's first sense perception human-like robot, developed by SoftBank Robotics Co., Ltd. (SoftBank hereafter), has topped the 10,000-unit mark (*1). Models for corporations are finding widespread application in greeting and receiving customers in various situations, including financial institutions, retail stores, showrooms, and transportation facilities.

As a SoftBank certified Robo-App Partner (Basic), Panasonic individually designs work-assist systems utilizing Pepper in accordance with customer requests.

By combining the Panasonic Group's technology and integration expertise, behavioral programming that conforms to the customer's work activities is used to enable coexistence and collaboration among people and robots. Various properties exclusive to robots also make it possible to create spaces filled with pleasure, surprise, and relaxation. In addition to shops and offices, application proposals include educational institutions, medical and healthcare facilities, and customer-gathering facilities. Rather than simply serving as replacements for human workers, robots are providing customers with exciting new values and experiences.

*1: Figure according to a SoftBank survey.

Solution Name	Robotic Solutions Utilizing Pepper
Applications	Robotic Solutions for Reception Services, Customer-Gathering Facilities, and Healthcare Facilities
Beginning of Order Reception	July 8, 2016
Sales Target	50 sets in FY2016

*The robotic solutions utilizing Pepper are only available in Japan.

Main Features

Behavioral programming that conforms to work activities enables coexistence and collaboration among people and robots.
With its natural language AI (artificial intelligence), Pepper has the ability to accurately repeat conversation and motion patterns. On the other hand, there are limits to the content and volume of information that needs to be input in advance, resulting in restrictions on conversations and motions. In order to help revolutionize our customers' work processes, we ask customers about various issues and requests, and then develop work-related applications that maximize Pepper's strengths. In this way, we build environments that allow people and robots to join together and collaborate.
Pepper and Panasonic technology are combined in individual designs upon request.
For example, by adding OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to Pepper, it can read the information on a business card when a visitor comes to the reception desk, and then check the database to automatically find and call the person in charge. Facial recognition technology allows Pepper to distinguish the personal attributes (gender, age, etc.) of visitors, and to change its response pattern appropriately. Combining Pepper and Panasonic Group technology in this way makes it possible to offer customers their very own, unique robot system.
Big Data acquisition and analysis technologies are used to enhance Pepper's work capabilities.
In order to expand robotic applications and increase autonomous responses, robots must deduce features and trends from a massive amount of data, and have a system that is able to utilize it. As such, Panasonic collects and analyzes a wide variety of data from the situations in which Pepper is used, in order to feedback the results to the development process and improve Pepper's working capability.

Main Applications

Offices: Repeating presentations according to preset conditions without losing tempo or accuracy.
Stores and customer-gathering facilities: Applying the exclusive ability of a robot to gain the interest of visitors concerning a store or facility, and promote the features of products and services. Extended, continuous work also has no effect on a robot.
Educational facilities: While responding to the curiosity of children, the ability to enjoy playing with educational materials or games. Robots also show no signs of fatigue or stress.
Healthcare facilities: Pepper can converse with occupants, play games, and provide other forms of recreation. Robots and people can join to spend enjoyable time together.

Solution Details (*2)

Robot body	SoftBank "Pepper for Biz" (36-month rental contract)
Unit warranty	Security Warranty Pack (36 months) (*3)
Application development	Application development designed to meet the needs of each customer
System operation warranty	Supporting the stable operation of the robot system (*4)

*2: Please inquire for details.
*3: This warranty service is offered by SoftBank.
*4: This warranty service is offered by Panasonic.

Media Contacts:: Panasonic Corporation; Global Communications Department; Media Promotion Office; presscontact@ml.jp.panasonic.com; * When submitting your inquiries, please also provide your name, name of media, and country of residence.

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