A company called Knightscope has produced a prototype crime fighting robot that it is calling K5 Autonomous Data Machine. It is a robot on wheels that looks a little like R2D2 from Star Wars. But it is functionally more reminiscent of the movie Minority Report. It has crime prediction software as well as cutting edge surveillance hardware and software. The K5 has or will have a license plate reader, facial recognition, biohazard sniffers and LIDAR mapping for positional awareness.
Naturally the thought of these robots wandering around public areas keeping tabs on innocent civilians has raised privacy concerns. Knightscope answers these with the same old excuses we have come to expect. It is their opinion that the loss of privacy that is produced by constant surveillance is more than offset by the warm safe feeling of your every movement being watched and judged by a robot. The CEO of Knightscope, William Santana Li says "What puts people on edge is not
necessarily privacy. What puts people on edge is being shot at." Knightscope is not arming K5 - at least not yet.
This crime-predicting robot aims to patrol our streets by 2015
A scene in the 2004 film "I,
Robot" involves an army of rogue NS-5 humanoids establishing a
curfew and imprisoning the citizens of Chicago, circa 2035, inside
their homes. That's not how Knightscope envisions the coming day of
deputized bots.
In its far less frightful future,
friendly R2-D2 lookalikes patrol our streets, school hallways, and
company campuses to keep us safe and put real-time data to good use.
Instead of the Asimov-inspired NS-5, Knightscope, a Silicon
Valley-based robotics company, is developing the K5.
Officially dubbed the K5 Autonomous
Data Machine, the 300-pound, 5-foot-tall mobile robot will be
equipped with nighttime video cameras, thermal imaging capabilities,
and license plate recognition skills. It will be able to function
autonomously for select operations, but more significantly, its
software will provide crime prediction that's reminiscent, the
company claims, of the "precog" plot point of "Minority
Report."
"It can see, hear, feel, and
smell and it will roam around autonomously 24/7," said CEO
William Santana Li, a former Ford Motor executive, in an interview
with CNET.
At the moment, the K5 is only a
prototype, and Knightscope next year will launch a beta program with
select partners. But the company is shooting to have the K5 fully
deployed by 2015 on a machine-as-a-service business model, meaning
clients would pay by the hour for a monthly bill, based on 40-hour
weeks, of $1,000. The hourly rate of $6.25 means the cost of the K5
would be competitive with the wages of many a low-wage human security
guard.
Servicing and monitoring of the bots
will depend on client needs, Li said, with either Knightscope or the
customer employing someone to manage the bots full-time.
Crime prediction is one of the more
eye-popping features of the K5, but the bot is also packed to the
gills with cutting-edge surveillance technology. It has LIDAR mapping
-- a technique using lasers to analyze reflected light -- to aid its
autonomous movement. "It takes in data from a 3D real-time map
that it creates and combines that with differential GPS and some
proximity sensors and does a probabilistic analysis to figure out
exactly where it should be going on its own," Li explained.
It also has behavioral analysis
capabilities and enough camera, audio, and other sensor technology to
pump out 90 terabytes of data a year per unit. Down the line, the K5
will be equipped with facial recognition and even the ability to
sniff out emanations from chemical and biological weapons, as well as
airborne pathogens. It will be able to travel up to 18 mph, and later
models will include the ability to maneuver curbs and other terrain.
