The Droids are here: new security helpers are less than human – or at least different

While riding the Tube in London during IFSEC, I came across an attention-grabbing headline in a newspaper someone left in the next seat: “Coming To a Workplace Near You: RoboOfficeCop.”

The article was about a robot that can patrol an office, checking that doors are shut and desks are uncluttered, using cameras and scanners to see whether anything is out of the ordinary. If something is amiss, the 6-ft-tall machine can store information to a hard drive to be reported later to a human. “Bob (that’s his name) is not about replacing our security officers,” said Stewart Angell of G4S Technologies, which has been testing the robot in its Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, headquarters. “It can make decisive, very quick decisions about changes in the environment.” All this was in the article in the Metro newspaper, which also explained that Bob is part of a project by Birmingham University to see how robots work in offices. Seems there’s another project going on in Austria that involves using the same Scitos G5 robot in a personal care home. The robot is made in Germany – here’s is the manufacturer’s web site. [http://www.metralabs.com/].

A robot I found at IFSEC was the “e-vigilante: surveillance robot” displayed by EOS Innovation, which was exhibiting among the French companies. Seeing Bob’s “15 minutes of fame” playing out on the subway had reminded me that Eos innovation had reached out before the show about their robot. A little bummed about being “scooped” by the Metro before I even got to the show, I searched the aisles of IFSEC to find another example of a security robot. I have been hearing about security robots for years, and have seen a few of them at shows. It’s an interesting idea: That a machine can take the place of a human in the repetitive tasks required of night security guards, for example.

Turns out the e-vigilante is smaller than Bob – no more than knee-high – a little three-wheeled contraption that includes a transparent opening for the camera lens. At IFSEC, I met Odile Laborie, who was “handling” e-vigilante, which was sitting motionless nearby. He explained the benefits of a mobile autonomous robot that can run random patrols or selected patterns within a specific perimeter. It offers “a mobile alternative to static systems,” can react using an active detection system, and can increase the agent’s reactivity (to optimize human resources).

I wanted to see the little guy operate, but turns out a colleague had already left the show with the power charger. They have a video of the robot on their web site (http://www.eos-innovation.eu/eos).

UPDATE: Bob the Robot completed his historic three-week work experience at G4S Technology and was taken back to the University of Birmingham. It was the first time in Europe an autonomous robot was deployed in a working office environment to do a real job.