A robot guard helps prevent vandalism in a hotel in Portland (USA).
The Aloft hotel in Portland (USA) faced the problem of vandalism of cars left by guests of the facility. This is due to the large number of homeless people who have chosen this area to live.
General manager Mike Daly says they initially tried to hire security people but ran into staffing issues. Instead, the robot works 24 hours a day and does not need a salary.
This robot is Robbie, similar to the famous R2-D2 from “Star Wars”. It has a height of about 160 cm, weighs 150 kg and can move slowly while patrolling.
“There have been no untoward incidents with cars since Robbie started in December,” Daly said.
Robby is equipped with a 360-degree camera and a thermal imager. It walks through the parking lot like a robot vacuum cleaner, scanning license plates of parked cars. If the thermal imager notices a heat source behind the car, it goes there and studies it. Robbie warns the hotel staff about suspicious persons, and through him you can talk to them. If strangers are aggressive, a hotel employee calls the police.
Thus, Robby acts as a CCTV system that cannot stop any violation. However, this is enough: the acts of vandalism have disappeared, and the hotel management is satisfied with both the savings due to the lack of payment to the security guards and the fact that the cars are under constant surveillance.
