Pepper is expanding its skills to help limit exposure to viruses and ensure people are wearing a mask in confined spaces. SoftBank Robotics Europe hopes the robot will help businesses reopen safely.

To help slow the spread of COVID-19, countries like France are requiring people over the age of 11 to wear masks in closed public places. Other European countries have similar rules, so SoftBank Robotics Europe is rolling out a new free update that allows Pepper to detect face masks.

Using an image recognition AI and Single Shot Detector, Pepper can scan the faces of up to five people at once. On Pepper’s tablet, a green circle will appear around an image of anyone wearing a mask, and a red circle will appear around the image of anyone without a mask. Pepper can thank people for wearing masks or remind someone to put a face covering on.

Access the Mask Detection Library on GitHub

According to SoftBank Robotics Europe, no personal data is used or stored, and the system works with masks that have complex patterns and color schemes. Pepper will provide daily analytics, like the percentage of people complying with mask requirements.

SoftBank hopes Pepper’s newest capabilities will help businesses as they begin to reopen. While Pepper’s previous tasks have been somewhat cutesy, helping businesses enforce face mask rules could give the robot a new level of responsibility. It’s also good to see that the now five-year-old robot is still receiving updates.

 Discover more about Pepper and how other robots are helping to slow the spread of COVID-19

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Check the article here: https://www.engadget.com/pepper-robot-softbank-robotics-face-mask-ai-152744854.html