Repost re VoiceTimes member NEC--
NEC Develops Personal Robot with Speech, Image Recognition
March 23, 2001 (TOKYO) -- NEC Corp. said it has developed a robot called PaPeRo, short for "partner-type personal robot," focusing on communication ability with humans that is enabled by speech and image recognition technology.
The characteristic of the robot -- the company's second prototype -- is the ability to recognize up to 10 persons' voices. In addition, with the image recognition ability, it can detect and identify the speaker.
Made for the home environment, the round-shaped PaPeRo can communicate with humans. For example, it looks for human company, calls out one's name, approaches, makes small talk, dances, tells riddles and sings a song with natural facial expressions on the eyes (serving as CCD cameras) and the mouth (LEDs). It is able to recognize 650 phrases and speaks 3,000, and it is possible to increase the vocabulary.
It has a function to serve as a remote control for TVs. In a demonstration, it turned on the TV, and changed channels and volume upon the speaker's request. (photo: PaPeRo listening to the speaker's request to turn the TV on) It also works as an answering machine. When one family member asks the robot to take a voice message for someone absent from the house, the robot delivers the message to the right person upon his or her return.
Yoshihiro Fujita, project manager of the Incubation Center at NEC Laboratories, said, "We will explore how to apply use of a partnering robot best fitted for people who'd never used a robot, like youngsters and the elderly." There are a variety of uses, he said, including a device to monitor people for their care.
Fujita stressed that PaPeRo can become a research platform for prototyping and development. He touched on a future plan that his team plans to work with research institutes and universities to improve the recognition and movability, in addition to studying the relationship between humans and robots. It also will seek cooperation from industry application development.
There is no plan to commercialize the robot yet, he said.
The height of the PaPeRo is 385mm. The body looks "chubby" and measures 248mm wide x 245mm deep. The weight is 5.0kg, and it can run on a battery for two to three hours.
The PaPeRo, similar to a notebook PC configuration, has a 500MHz version of Intel Corp.'s Celeron microprocessor and 192MB of main memory. The operating system is Windows 98.
