Pepper makes leap to eldercare

Pepper is now part of a larger drive to develop more sophisticated eldercare robots as the global population ages.

The new health-centered Pepper is called the Multi-Purpose Eldercare Robot Assistant or MERA. What makes Pepper unique is that the robot was designed from the beginning to analyze facial and vocal cues to determine people's emotions so that it can respond accordingly. This new upgrade will add the ability to use these inputs to assess vital signs such as heart and breathing rates. MERA also employs IBM's speech technology used for Watson, IBM's artificial intelligence best known for its appearances on Jeopardy.

Eldercare-assistive robots are turning into a big segment of the robotics industry. A report from Future Market Insights said cheaper R&D in this sector has helped it grow. Results can already be seen in the market today, with cheaper service robots having more functionality than ever before. The other part of the equation is the demand side. The number of people over 65 years old is projected to grow 181 percent by 2050.

Robots are expected to be an important component of caring for the elderly and keeping them company in the future. There are already robots that are designed more for social interaction than physical needs. It makes sense that eventually these two things will come together.

Robots are not a perfect solution for everything, though. Even with all the advances expected to come in robotics over the next few decades, nothing beats a call from a child or grandchild.