The people of Dubai are being looked after by real-life versions of Robocop as fully autonomous police vehicles are deployed on the city’s streets. Made locally by the Micropolis company, the non-cop cop cars are packed with AI that the firm promises will deliver a “safer future”.

Dubai’s foray into non-human policing reached a milestone last year when the vehicles were turned loose in the city’s Global Village tourism hub in what was their first official deployment.

Autonomous mobile patrol robots parked in a large industrial facility with steel towers, pipes, and catwalks in the background, ready for deployment
3

The Micropolis DPR-02 can’t chase down and arrest suspected criminals, but it can carry out plenty of other duties associated with the police. It specialises in surveillance, monitoring and rapid response in public areas with high pedestrian traffic.

Among its capabilities are detection and recognition modes for identifying individuals, suspicious incidents and vehicles in real time. Its AI systems mean it can analyse movement patterns and behaviours among people and cars in order to detect illegal activities using what the company calls a “Suspect Matrix”. 

The images picked up on the DPR-02’s 360-degree cameras are fed back to a police command centre so human officers can monitor what they’re picking up and coordinate their patrols remotely. The idea is to provide continuous mobile surveillance and improve police response times.

White and blue police armored vehicle on display at a technology expo or showroom set-up.
5

Another Micropolis vehicle, the M2, is also being rolled out for the Dubai police. It’s designed for off-road and hard-to-access environments. It has a top speed of 25km/h, weighs 450kg, and runs on a battery that’s good for 10 hours of juice as it drives an e-motor on each of the four wheels. 

The M1 is the divvy van of the Micropolis line-up, so to speak. Far bigger than its stablemates, at around the size of a human-driven all-terrain vehicle, it weighs 1800kg and its top speed of 120km/h speaks to its purpose of patrolling roads and gated communities. 

Able to carry a payload of 500kg, the M1 also has a compartment that contains a drone that can be used for aerial surveillance. Its even bigger brother, the M1.5, is another off-roader that has been designed for police use in desert rescue operations and border surveillance.