Silicon Valley Patrolled by RoboCops

Robotic security guards, known as Knightscope K5 Autonomous Data Machines, are now patrolling Silicon Valley. The automatons were built by Knightscope, a robotics company in Mountain View, California.

These “RoboCops” – with their built-in microphones, cameras, laser scanners, and sensors – are on the look-out for suspicious behaviour, which they can relay back to their control centre. They have speakers through which they can alert trespassers or potential burglars to vacate the area, while the unit uses its camera to record the person and send the video to the control centre. If the person does not leave then, according to Stacy Stephens, co-founder of Knightscope, “the robot is looking at the video, listening for glass breakage, any loud sound that breaking in would cause. We’ll get the license plate, picture of the vehicle, geotag location, and time.” The Kinghtscope K5’s sensors can also record and store up to 300 car licence plates per minute.

Knightscope hope to expand use of their patrolling robots to campuses, malls, casinos, and hotels in future. Use of the robots will reduce crime in an area by up to 50%.

Source: RT