Singapore to deploy more police robots on its streets
Steph Deschamps / June 17, 2023
Singapore will "gradually deploy" more patrol robots across the streets of the Southeast Asian city-state, the police said on Thursday, after more than five years of limited testing.
The robots went into service at a Changi airport terminal in April "to augment the numbers of police officers on the ground conducting patrols", Singapore Police said in a statement.
Further deployments are expected on the low-birth-rate island of 5.6 million inhabitants, which is using technology to overcome its labor shortage.
The Singapore Police Force "plans to gradually deploy more patrol robots to increase police operations across Singapore", it says, without giving a timetable.
The patrol robots are equipped with cameras, sensors, loudspeakers, a screen, and can emit lights or sirens.
They are equipped with a 360-degree camera that provides images to police officers in a control room, who can address the public via loudspeakers.
Using lights, sirens and loudspeakers, the robots can, for example, "set up a police cordon, warn passers-by of an incident" before human police officers arrive, notes the press release.