PEBRE: An Open-Hardware Compute and Perception Add-On for the Pepper Robot

2026-06-10

AI Summary

This work addresses the limitations of the Pepper robot in computational power and perceptual capabilities, which hinder efficient development and integration with external devices. To overcome these constraints, the authors propose the first open-source hardware extension framework tailored for Pepper, featuring a modular perception and computing architecture centered on the NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano as the primary processing unit. This design integrates a Logitech BRIO high-definition camera, an Intel RealSense D435i depth camera, and a microphone array to substantially enhance real-time on-device computation and multimodal sensing. The proposed platform not only extends Pepper’s viability for research applications but also offers the community a reusable, extensible co-design environment for hardware-software integration.

Abstract

This paper presents the design, development, and experimental verification of PEBRE, an open-hardware add-on for fast software development on the Pepper Robot. Our project enhances Pepper's computational and perception capabilities by integrating external components such as a Jetson Orin Nano, Logitech BRIO, Intel RealSense D435i, Samson UB1, and RØDE VideoMicro II. Our results show that the new hardware considerably improved Pepper's perception abilities and computational power. This development contributes to the community by implementing an open hardware and open-source modular add-on to the Pepper robot and keeping this relevant research platform functional beyond its expected lifespan. With PEBRE, we aim to facilitate faster software development and more efficient integration of external components, ultimately enhancing the capabilities of the Pepper robot.

Problem

• Pepper Robot
• computational capability
• perception capability
• hardware extension
• open-hardware

Innovation

• open-hardware
• modular add-on
• robot perception
• computational enhancement
• Pepper robot