It’s only fitting a city with flying taxis, a hotel with life-sized dinosaurs and firefighters packing water-powered hoverboards would be at the forefront of another futuristic endeavor: RoboCops.
The city in question is of course Dubai and the RoboCop that is starting work this month goes by the Dubai Police Robot, not Officer Alex J. Murphy. A customized REEM humanoid robot that was designed by Spain-based PAL Robotics, the autonomous DPR can recognize hand signals and gestures, determine a person’s emotional state from their facial expression, broadcast live video feeds and use facial recognition software to help other cops identify and catch suspects.
To start its time on the force, the DPR — which stands 5’5” tall, weighs 220 pounds and can speak six languages — will be deployed in shopping centers, at tourist areas and behind the desk at police stations where it will essentially serve as a receptionist, according to CNN. The fun doesn’t end here however as Dubai is hopes to have a mobile patrol-ready version by 2020.
That’s not all. “We are looking to have more robots in the future to handle policing,” Brigadier Abdullah Bin Sultan told Gulf News. “By 2030, we are keen to make robots around 25 percent of the police force.” By that same year, Dubai also anticipates having a robot-only police station.
While we’re not sold on the prospect of a robotic mall cop, it’s gotta be better than Paul Blart.
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