The Knightscope K5 is an autonomous robot engineered to keep watch over city streets. California-based company Knightscope designed the fleet of crime-fighting robots in response to the public shooting and bombing incidents that have taken place in the US over the past couple of years. The K5 is not built for combat but is intended to assist security or police forces by providing accurate surveillance data.
Each robot is engineered with a 360-degree camera equipped with night and day vision, infrared and thermal scanning capabilities, proximity sensors, real-time 3D mapping technology and optical character recognition. Knightscope says its goal is to improve response times and keep officers out of danger where possible.
The on-site, real-time data collected by the robots is processed through a predictive analytics programme where it is then combined with existing government, crowdsourced and business data to assess a potential threat in an area. If concern is raised, an alert level is assigned to the situation and local authorities are notified through the Knightscope’s operations.
