Consideration of Safety Management When Using Pepper, a Humanoid Robot for Care of Older Adults

Pepper, a humanoid robot, is 1.2 m in height and is designed to move its limbs. There are risks of the older adults experiencing falling and collision accidents when they interact with Pepper. When physical interaction happens between a humanoid robot and human beings, potential harmful physical contact might occur. The aim of this report was to examine the safety management aspects when using Pepper, a humanoid robot for the care of older adults. The older adults’ reactions to Pepper’s functions cannot be predicted. Hence, it is necessary to clarify methods to guarantee its safety in advance and to increase the safety and properties of the robots. The benefits of introducing support robots such as Pepper for aging medical and nursing care settings are obvious. Therefore, engagement in robot development while considering both the risks and benefits is critical. Our academic initiatives have just begun. Through information exchange among researchers, users, engineers, and law specialists, we need to identify latent and prominent risks in situations where Pepper and the older adults interact and deepen our examination of measures against such risks.