The Ohio State Police decommissioned its K5 robot. It proved useless.

The police department of the city of Dublin in the American state of Ohio has stopped using the K5 patrol robot developed by Knightscope. The device, which received the name DubBot, worked for almost a year, but it did not bring any tangible benefit to law enforcement officers.

The robot was a mobile surveillance platform equipped with all-round cameras and an emergency police call button for citizens. Despite its futuristic appearance, reminiscent of characters from science fiction, its capabilities were limited to monitoring the surrounding environment and transmitting information to operators.

Expensive experiment with no result

The city government spent more than $67,000 on the purchase of the K5 — an amount comparable to the annual salary of one police officer. However, during the entire period of operation, the robot did not help solve any crime, did not contribute to the arrest of violators, and did not record any incidents that required police intervention.

According to representatives of the local administration, the device could not meet the real operational needs of the service. A pilot project was launched to evaluate the effectiveness of similar technologies in urban conditions, but the result turned out to be disappointing.

The project could have cost much more

Initially, Dublin authorities planned to deploy two K5 robots at once as part of a two-year program costing more than $238,000. As a result, only one device was used.

The total cost of the project reached more than $128,000, but part of the money was recovered thanks to compensation from the manufacturer. After the testing was completed, the authorities decided to abandon the further use of the robotic patrolman.

Failures haunt K5 robots not for the first time

Such problems arose in other cities of the USA. Previously, they tried to use K5 robots in the New York subway, but the project was quickly canceled due to low efficiency. Moreover, the devices themselves required constant escort by police officers.

They could not find a practical application for such works at the San Antonio airport. These cases once again raised the question of how modern robotic systems are really ready to replace humans in the field of public safety.