Beijing Traffic Police Successfully Test Robot Police “Officer”

There have been a growing number of interesting developments in the world of robotics. More specifically, various countries around the world are looking at ways to make robots a part of everyday life. China is, surprisingly enough, investing a lot of money in police robots. It is only a matter of time until these creations become more prominent in the country’s capital city.

Police Robots are Coming to Beijing

No one can deny there are a lot of worthwhile concepts to explore when it comes to robotics and various aspects of everyday life. More specifically, it seems the Beijing traffic police will soon be joined by a new type of robot capable of identifying traffic violations. This is a major breakthrough, to say the very least, as there are some interesting options to be explored in this regard. Human operators often can’t keep up with these violations, which poses a risk to public safety.

After all, China is prone to quite a few traffic violations, similar to any other country in the world. Solving this problem will not be easy, although there is a new solution that is readily available by the looks of things. More specifically, the Beijing police experimented with a highway patrol robot late last week. Its main areas of focus include illegal parking and driving in emergency lanes. So far, the results are rather promising.

The Beijing traffic police conducted this first experiment along the city’s Airport Expressway. A robot the size of your average piece of luggage doesn’t look out of place by any means. It is this inconspicuous quality that will allow the robot to yield the desired results. Moreover, the robot weighs around 20 kilograms and can achieve speeds of up to 3 miles per hour. It is not a speedster by any means, but that isn’t what this robot was designed to be.

With a fully charged battery, this police robot can operate for about one full workday, as its battery has an operational capacity of five to eight hours. It all depends on the amount of work the machine has to do. Nevertheless, police will need multiple robots in order to conduct 24/7 monitoring. It is unclear if that will change moving forward.

Moreover, this police robot is capable of capturing images and video to back up its assessments. It is this type of technology that makes robots so appealing, as they will send the evidence back to the police officials themselves. Creating a backup of all collected evidence has become a lot more important over the past few years. Other routine work not related to traffic violations is also part of this police robot’s day-to-day job. It’s a rather versatile creation, to say the least.

Right now, the goal is to see these robots being used more frequently. Beijing’s traffic police unit has already reported that this experiment went as expected and that it wants to step up its crackdown on traffic violations and improve overall road safety. It will be interesting to see if other cities in China follow Beijing’s lead in the years to come. Police robots are a growing industry right now, and such efforts will become more common in the coming years.