‘A receptionist fluent in English and Japanese, working 24/24 hours that never gets angry with customer and never makes mistake’. FPT Japan’s Director Tran Dang Hoa described Pepper, the first receptionist robot of FPT, who has recently started his job after 2 months of testing and improving features.
Pepper’s current responsibility is to welcome and to help customers with meeting location and time as well as supporting them in calling a specific person for the meeting. Moreover, the robot can recognize existing customers to give a welcome back message. Customers can interact with built-in display and select options to get assistance from Pepper.
Pepper has the same platform with NAO which was researched by FPT earlier, from which FPT Technology Institute created SMAC-kid or formerly known as SmartOshin. Pepper uses image recognition technology – recognition API developed by FPT Software’s R&D department to recognize and detect faces. It is expected that Pepper will be enhanced with many more APIs (Application Programming Interface) in the near future such as connection with CRM system, using IBM Watson technology to chat with customers, etc.
Pepper’s is a 121-cm-height, 28-kg white robot with a flat screen embedded on its chest. Beside voice detection technology, Pepper is also equipped with 2 cameras, 4 micros, 3 depth-field sensor on its head and connected through Wi-fi. Pepper also has 2 arms with sensor possible of flexible movements. Pepper is originally a Softbank’s robot, equipped with FPT Software’s “emotional engine” and artificial intelligence technology based on cloud to recognize gestures, emotions and human voices. Pepper is now deployed at FPT Japan’s head office.
