Dubai Police has announced its first “Robocop” has joined the city’s force to patrol city malls and tourist attractions.
The robot, which was unveiled at the emirate’s Gulf Information and Security Expo and Conference, is the first of a planned fleet of bots that will begin working with the force, who say they also hope to make an entire station autonomous by 2030.
The robot is a customised version of the Reem model made by Spanish firm PAL Robotics.
Brigadier Khalid Al Razooqi, Dubai Police director general of smart services said: “Now most people visit police stations or customer service, but with this tool we can reach the public 24/7 and it won’t ask for any sick leave or maternity leave.
“It has a smart intelligent system so it can protect people from crime, because it can broadcast what is happening right away to our command and control centre.
“We are not going to fire our police officers by replacing them with this tool but with the number of people in Dubai increasing, we want to relocate police officers so they work in the right areas and can concentrate on providing a safe city.”
The force said they hope to increase robot numbers to 25% of the force by 2030, and plan to expand its language capabilities to understand Russian, Chinese, French and Spanish – currently it can only communicate in English and Arabic.
