Robots supposedly looking like dogs, like those that have patrolled cities like New York or Los Angeles for some time, could begin operating in Malaga next year thanks to a project developed by the University of Malaga (UMA) in collaboration with several companies. and the City Council through the Local Police Computer Group.
This is one of the five projects that the UMA is carrying out within the framework of the “5G Tactile” initiative, which plans to make improvements to the 5G network and apply this technology to different use cases in the fields of the connected car and autonomous, citizen security and precision agriculture.
“5G Tactile” has an endowment of 4 million euros from Next Generation European funds and in its deployment, in addition to the university, a dozen leading companies and institutes in the field of 5G and its applications participate, such as Telefónica, Nokia, Alisys, HeadNet, Nemergent, Dekra, Keysight Technologies, Vicomtech and the Institute of Subtropical and Mediterranean Horticulture (IHSM) La Mayora.
Fifty researchers are involved in this great project, twenty of them from the university, and their goal is to present the first results in March 2024.
One of these teams is already carrying out tests so that the first androids equipped with 360-degree cameras and equipped with artificial intelligence will soon begin patrolling in the city center of Malaga, serving as support to the Municipal Police.
Although there is talk of robot dogs, the truth is that their appearance is more similar to a type of tractor or four-wheeled vehicle. Not like one of the prototypes that were launched in New York last April, which could be said to have four legs, although it also takes imagination to pass it off as a dog.
Be that as it may, in Malaga, the idea is that these “robot dogs” are a kind of “helpers” to the agents and that they can move through the streets “with a certain freedom” to recognize anomalous or problematic situations, such as a robbery, a crowd, a fall or a suspicious object, and pass this information on to the police.
“It remains to be defined how many things we want it to do, beyond sending images in real time and doing some type of analysis of the situation, such as if we want it to generate alarms or some other citizen warning action,” Pedro Merino explains to EFE. , one of the UMA professors who direct the ‘5G Tactile’ projects together with María del Mar Gallardo, Manuel Díaz, José Francisco Aldana, Almudena Díaz and Rodrigo Román, all of them researchers at the José María Institute of Software Technology and Engineering Linero Trojan (ITIS).
One of the first tasks of these robots, explains Merino, could be the detection of “scooters that circulate at high speed” through the streets of the city. “It seems that it is a problem and the Police want this to be the first proof of concept,” says the expert.
In this project, which will be developed in the center of Malaga because there is already a private 5G network in the area, the UMA has the collaboration of Telefónica and Alisys, in addition to the Local Police.
The UMA also works on how drones and robots can help the field. The project, in this case, is developed on the farm that the Institute of Subtropical and Mediterranean Horticulture has in Algarrobo, about 40 kilometers from Malaga capital, where scientific research specialized in intensive horticulture and subtropical fruit growing is carried out.
