“Please pay attention to vehicles and cross safely according to pedestrian signals.”
In Chengdu, China, one can see a humanoid robot broadcasting voices while signaling traffic at the end of the street. This is as Chengdu is preparing to deploy robot police for urban patrols ahead of the '2025 World Games' to be held in August. The 'robot police' in Chengdu are deployed to areas with a peak daily population of 100,000, transmitting street footage to the command center in real time and performing patrol duties by detecting unusual situations.
According to China's state-run Xinhua News Agency on the 23rd, Chengdu recently began full-scale patrol activities utilizing a total of five robot police in Tianfu Square, a densely populated central area. The robots deployed this time include three types: quadrupedal, wheeled, and humanoid. They work in pairs, rotating every 2 to 3 hours to transmit patrol footage and unusual situations in real time to the command center while alerting nearby police.
In particular, the humanoid robot 'Tongtianxiao' resembles a person and stands on the roadside, waving its arms to guide vehicle flow and urging pedestrians to prioritize traffic safety.
According to the Chengdu Public Security Bureau, these robots are equipped with features such as autonomous driving, obstacle avoidance, real-time voice and video transmission, and remote voice broadcasting. They can carry police equipment weighing up to 20 kg and have the capability of returning to charging stations autonomously, enabling continuous operation for 24 hours. This is true even on hot days when temperatures exceed 40 degrees or during severe weather conditions with heavy rain.
According to the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, if a scuffle occurs on the street, the robots analyze human movements and crowd density to recognize the situation and send real-time alert messages containing location and risk situation details to nearby police on patrol. Police can utilize the robot's voice broadcasting feature to issue warning announcements.
Additionally, they can identify pedestrians violating signals and electric scooter drivers without helmets, issuing real-time voice warnings. Since late last year, police drones have also been introduced to patrol sites in Chengdu. With police robots patrolling fixed points and drones monitoring from the air, comprehensive responses have become possible. As a result, it was reported by People's Daily that no violations occurred with just one police officer deployed during peak commuting traffic.
Zhang Lihang, deputy director of the technology and information department at the Chengdu Public Security Bureau, told Xinhua that "(the robot police) can enter areas that are difficult for humans to access, making them useful in maintaining public order" and noted, "They can also detect if a tourist collapses from heat stroke and immediately request rescue."
According to reports, experiments related to embodied artificial intelligence (AI) are actively being conducted not only in Chengdu but also in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen, and the application areas are gradually expanding. Embodied AI refers to artificial intelligence with a physical form such as a body, as opposed to AI that operates within a computer. Previously, humanoid marathons and humanoid combat competitions were held in Beijing.
The embodied AI market in China is rapidly growing. According to Xinhua News Agency, last year, the market size of embodied AI in China exceeded 480 billion yuan (about 92 trillion won). By 2031, it is projected that the market size will surpass 1 trillion yuan (about 192 trillion won).