This robot helper failed to win over the NYPD

The Knightscope K5 was trained and configured by the New York Police Department, before being deployed on regular patrols between midnight and 6 am. — Photography Courtesy of Business Wire/AFP Relaxnews

Announced with great enthusiasm in September 2023, the New York City Police Department's experiment with the Knightscope K5 surveillance robot has finally come to an end, and the device has been mothballed. This example shows the limits of this type of robot, even if more and more robotic devices will likely be coming to the streets of New York and other big cities around the world.

In the end, New Yorkers won't have seen much of the Knightscope K5, since the robot responsible for patrolling the city's subway at Times Square station, has been retired, according to the New York Times. On paper, the experiment looked promising. Knightscope K5 had been trained and configured by the police to provide regular patrols between midnight and 6 am in the subway corridors. Measuring almost 1.60, (5 ft 3) in height, the robot moves at the same pace as a human, never exceeding 5 km/h (3 mph). Equipped with several cameras and a call-for-help system, it can follow a precise, predefined route and "patrol" any area before returning to its charging station on its own.