Dubai Police deploys robot cars with built-in drones
The Dubai Police Force has said it will deploy a fleet of miniature autonomous cars, built by Singapore robotics company OTSAW, to patrol the city's streets. The vehicles, called O-R3 units, will transmit a live video feed back to a central monitoring station and come equipped with biometric software and scanners to help them identify suspicious persons and objects. The cars also carry an onboard drone, which can be released to get an aerial view of a scene or track suspects. Dubai Police has a target of replacing 25% of its patrol force with robots by 2030.
Living in Dubai these days must feel a bit like Detroit circa 2043, minus the shadowy megacorporation turning murdered cops into baddie-slaying cyborgs. Fresh off the oil kingdom's plans to create an autonomous drone taxi service—and an attempt at their very own RoboCop—the Dubai Police Force has announced the creation of a fleet of self-driving, drone-deploying miniature police cruisers that can scan their surroundings for wanted criminals, and more ominously, "persons of interest."

If that sounds a little dystopian for your taste, well, the rest of the details won't do much to change that. Created by Singapore robotics firm OTSAW, the O-R3 units will send a live video feed via a 360-degree camera to a central monitoring station so Dubai Police can see what's going on at any time. Thanks to biometric software and scanners, the robot will also be able to "identify suspicious objects and track suspects," according to Brigadier Khalid Nasser Al Razooqi, the director of the police force's Smart Services program.

But should one of those suspects attempt a quick getaway, or just hop a fence as seen in the demonstration video below, the O-R3 is also capable of launching a camera-carrying drone at the touch of a button to continue the pursuit. The whole package is about the size of a Power Wheels toy, so it should be able to use paths and alleyways that are too small for the Dubai Police's fleet of supercars.