India's first RoboCop - KP-Bot : Kerala Police Announced Humanoid Robots in Police

The Kerala State Police have created history by becoming one of the world's first and the very first police force for Sub Inspector (SI) rank in the country to introduce humanoid robots named as KP-Bot. Chief Minister Vijayan welcomed the Sub Inspector (SI) ranked robot into the service with an honorary salute and the 'RoboCop' responded with a perfect salute. Homeland security, forensic sciences, law and order are specific areas where robots are potentially used worldwide, says Manoj Abraham, ADGP, and Nodal Officer, Kerala Cyberdome.

The robot, named KP-Bot, will manage the front office of Police Headquarters located in the state capital. Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurated the services of the robot at a function held at police headquarters on Tuesday.

When Inkar Sabot, the Chinese robot inaugurated Cocon, the state police chief Loknath Behera had said that the move was part of emphasizing how robotics and Artificial Intelligence would be part of everyday living in the coming days. It was after this, State Police department initiated steps to develop a robot for the department.

KP-Bot has been developed by State Police Cyberdome in cooperation with Asimov Robotics, a Kochi-based startup firm. The robot is programmed to do basic front office jobs such as greeting the visitors, collecting their information, guiding them to appropriate sections, fixing appointments and even issuing visitors’ identification cards. The robot also has the ability to interact with visitors both through voice and through a screen which displays messages. It is also capable of opening case files after receiving petitions from people. It can also recognize senior officers and offer salutes.

"We have plans to add more features to the robot, enabling it to carry out tasks such as vehicular traffic control and bomb detection," DGP Loknath Behera said. He said that the present model was a prototype and it will need at least a month's training before it can be posted permanently at the PHQ for front office maintenance.

"KP-Bot is also a legally aware machine. For example, if someone offerse bribe to it, the robot will initiate steps to register a case against that person," Behera said. KP-Bot is modelled on a woman Sub-Inspector. The gender of the robot was chosen as female to promote the message of women empowerment and gender equality. 

KP-Bot is designed to provide round-the-clock service, involving public interface and front office administration and overcome human limitations to avoid, to the extent possible, human error. However, it does not replace any human resources. Rather, it would act as the first contact point and a data collection tool to help improve the overall quality of service and performance levels. With artificial intelligence being tapped increasingly and a range of sensors being deployed to collect information, KP-Bot would work alongside human beings seamlessly.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES

The major ‘duties’ assigned to the KP-Bot are:

* Meet and greet officers through face recognition

* Meet and greet visitors, guide them to appropriate sections in the police headquarters

* Provide detailed and accurate information on procedures related to services verbally, supported by information displayed on the screen

* Collect information about visitors, to fix appointments and issue visitor IDs

* Create a case file on complaint/ petition as detailed by the visitor, and

* Allow officers to get connected to the robot though telepresence.

FUTURE ADDITIONS

Future additions in its duties/ services would include:

Equipping the robot with additional sensors such as metal and IED detectors; thermal imaging; gas sensors; and facial gesture recognition to address the safety and security of human officers and the workplace, and Helping visitors with an update of their petitions, by employing dynamic face recognition and machine learning.