Hello Pepper, do you see me? "Yes, and I love what I see." Whoever is reading this article may have already had the opportunity to meet this character of exquisite education and friendliness at the tourist information point of a hotel reception or providing patients in a hospital or residence with the possibility of making video calls to their families.
If there is a popular robot (it is already used by more than 200 companies around the world), it is Pepper. Manufactured by Softbank Robotics, this four-foot-tall android with a friendly face carries the soul of the Alisys company, which programmed it to interact and empathize with people and for this reason today it is the king of so-called humanoid 'social robots'. He is able to identify non-verbal language such as gestures and emotions and provides visual feedback through his tablet.
In the Alisys robotics laboratory at DFactory, the new industry 4.0 node promoted and managed by the Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona, Pepper is not alone.
Little Nao listens, recognizes faces, and carries out complex movements, such as sitting down, getting up, or walking, alone or hand in hand. Furhat is an expressive head that simulates a person's tone of voice and emotions, sings, changes its appearance, and speaks more than 40 languages. And Alpha mini, the most toy-like, could arouse the tenderness of a stone block with his lively eyes or Kung-Fu demonstrations. A combination of artificial intelligence, machine learning, facial and voice recognition is the technological mix that brings them all to life.
During the months of the pandemic, androids put themselves at the service of medicine and health and accelerated what was imminently to come. Now the robot sector is expected to reach a global revenue of 19,000 million dollars in 2025, according to a study by the consultancy EY.
In addition, in 2021, for the first time, more than half a million installations of new industrial robots were exceeded, according to data from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) and it is estimated that the market for collaborative robots, which interact with people in the work environment, it will reach 10.8 billion dollars in 2028, according to experts.
With these rosy prospects, it is not surprising that the company, traditionally dedicated to offering digital solutions from AI, cloud or blockchain for call centers or contact centers, has made a strong commitment to robotics.
In addition to androids for health, tourism, hospitality or education, Alisys holds the patent for the most advanced quadruped robot in the world. The "dog" Spot, oriented towards industry and construction, is capable of walking autonomously over rough terrain and inspecting it, going up and down stairs and even "sniffing" suspicious packages.
That this type of synergy is born is precisely one of the objectives that they want to facilitate from DFactory. "The idea is that here not only companies that did not know each other are known, but also work on joint projects related to artificial intelligence, robotics or 3D printing," explains Pere Navarro, State delegate to the Consorci.
An example of these new achievements that Beatriz Gómez commented on, and that will be presented on February 27 at MWC 23, is the first prototype of the Alisys Social Health Robot. It is equipped with technologies that allow it to interact with people in a natural way and provide support and assistance in health care.
It can be controlled on a large scale from the Alisys cloud platform and is designed to integrate with a series of tools and devices, such as a vital signs monitor that autonomously controls the patient's condition. It can also be used in domestic environments to accompany older people who experience unwanted loneliness.
Another of the company's novelties is this on-premise cloud platform that allows the management and remote control of fleets of heterogeneous robots, in real time, from anywhere and with the possibility of interacting with each other. Thanks to this technology, the implementation of robotics in all types of industries is facilitated, since by unifying the management of the robots from a control room, in addition to reducing costs, the device can be teleoperated so that it is the one that carries out carry out dangerous tasks and thus avoid accidents.
At this point, seeing what many robots are already capable of, the obligatory question is whether we should fear that they will replace us in parts of our lives. According to The Future of Jobs 2020 study, by 2025 the rate of automation of the workforce will be 14% higher and the work carried out entirely by human beings will be 53%, when it is now 67%.
The key is, therefore, in training, more creative and less repetitive job profiles, something that the robots would already take care of, "because they will serve to complement us, not to compete with us," says Gómez.
