Vizag Railway Robocop Arjun Catches 2 Notorious Criminals at Station
The robot is equipped with state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence (AI) equipment, IoT connectivity, and real-time monitoring capabilities
Visakhapatnam: In a first for Indian Railways, a humanoid robot named ASC Arjun deployed at the Visakhapatnam Railway Station helped catch two habitual criminals. This marks a milestone in Railways’ effort to deploy AI-powered security.
Robocop Arjun operates 24x7 at the railway station without any breaks. It uses an advanced Facial Recognition System (FRS) to detect the suspects. The robot matches faces of people at the railway station with the pre-loaded database of known criminals.
As a result, when Arjun saw Hadapa Shiva (39) and his associate G. Bhangaru, both hardcore habitual offenders, it immediately alerted the Railway Protection Force (RPF) Control Room.
RPF personnel acted swiftly and arrested the two, who have an extensive criminal history involving theft, robbery, dacoity, assault, and arms-related cases registered against them at Rayagada Police Station in Odisha. Both had been traveling without tickets.
Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Lalit Bohra told this correspondent that the robocop, which costs ₹20 lakh per unit, is currently being run on a pilot basis. "After 15 months, we will evaluate its performance. Based on results, we will decide on bringing more such robots," he stated.
On the arrests, Bohra revealed that it is the robocop’s first real-time identification of habitual offenders in a crowded public area like Visakhapatnam station.
ASC Arjun is the first of its kind humanoid robot of Indian Railways. It has been indigenously designed and developed in Visakhapatnam by a team led by Senior Divisional Security Commandant A.K. Dubey, involving diligent work for over a year.
The robot is equipped with state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence (AI) equipment, IoT connectivity, and real-time monitoring capabilities. It is designed to supplement Railways’ efforts in areas of security, passenger assistance, crowd management, cleanliness monitoring, and safety.
Its advanced features include intrusion detection using FRS with instant IoT-based alerts to RPF personnel, AI-based passenger density analysis to prevent congestion, autonomous safety announcements in English, Hindi, and Telugu, and semi-autonomous navigation.
ASC ARJUN has fire and smoke detection systems with instant alerts, along with interactive capabilities, such as multi-language communication and cultural gestures – like Namaste for passengers and salutes to RPF officers.