India’s now has its own ‘RoboCop’ as Kerala Police last week appointed its first robot into service. KP-BOT, a humanoid police robot was inaugurated at the police headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. KP-BOT has been modelled after a lady cop and has been given the rank of Sub-Inspector. It has been developed by Asimov Robotics Pvt Ltd
in collaboration with Cyberdome, Kerala Police’ tech research centre.
From receiving visitors to saluting police officers, it performs a wide range of functions. It can create visitor identity by collecting basic information, photograph and purpose of the visit. It also helps the visitor to register a complaint through an interactive form for which the input is touch screen as well as voice. In the case of urgencies, it can schedule meetings with officers through video calling.
The authorities are now planning to use it for advanced functions such as bomb detection & surveillance in future.
The first humanoid police robot was introduced by Dubai Police in 2017. With a 5ft 5in height and weighing 100kg, the robot is designed to read facial expressions and can speak six languages. The authorities use it for patrolling and identification of suspects
while citizens use it to report crimes and to pay fines.
