Pepper

Canonical robot record

Overview

Pepper is a social humanoid robot originally developed jointly by SoftBank Mobile and Aldebaran Robotics and unveiled in Tokyo in 2014. Rather than performing industrial or physical labor, Pepper is built to communicate with people, using cameras, microphones, and an array of sensors to perceive its environment and respond to human emotion and behavior. A touch display mounted on its chest supplements spoken conversation and gestures.

The robot moves on an omnidirectional wheeled base rather than legs, allowing it to navigate flat indoor spaces smoothly while engaging people through articulated arms, hands, and an expressive head. SoftBank Robotics markets Pepper as a customer-facing assistant that can greet visitors, answer questions, make recommendations, and collect feedback.

Pepper is deployed across a range of service settings including retail, banking, hospitality, education, and healthcare, where it is positioned to handle routine interactions and free human staff for higher-value work.

RoboZaps maintains this record as part of its canonical robotics database. Specs are source-verified where linked; the record compares public facts across manufacturers rather than representing a single robot maker.