Chinese researchers develop amphibious spherical robot assisting in police patrol in E.China’s Zhejiang

Amphibious spherical robot patrols the streets with police officers from Lucheng district, Wenzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province. (Photo/Courtesy of Lucheng district public security bureau)

A spherical robot that can operate both on the ground and in the water with the ability to track, combat, and capture, recently patrolled side by side with police officers in a commercial zone in Wenzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, drawing public attention with its futuristic shape and functions. With its constant improvement in size and functions, the robot is expected to have broad application, the research team told the Global Times on Tuesday.

A video clip circulating online shows the smart amphibious spherical robot automatically moving on the ground without human control, patrolling the streets side by side with the local police officers from Lucheng district in Wenzhou.

Weighing 125 kilograms, the robot can run as fast as 35 kilometers per hour, according to Wang You, associate professor from the College of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, who led the research team for the project.

Apart from its rapid acceleration, the robot has excellent off-road capabilities and it operates with stability against tipping over. With its solid structure, it can also resist strong impact, Wang told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Wang's team also made improvements and attaches some more gadgets to the robot such as net guns, tear spray, smoke bombs, as well as horns and acoustic wave dispersers to meet the needs of the police, including confrontation capabilities and the capacity to deal with threats at close distances.

The research team also has developed a smaller model of the spherical robot which can be held in hands to meet different demands in various application scenarios such as places caught fire.

Apart from its multi-application deployment used by public security and armed police, it can also be used in anti-terrorism drills, security guard industry, firefighting, emergency rescue, as well as scenarios in the water such as river water pollution detection due to its feature of floating on the water surface.

The spherical robot has gone viral online and has also caught the attention of overseas clients. Some customers from the Middle East had called the research team to inquire about the robot, Wang said.

At present, the cost of manufacturing the spherical robot is between 300,000 yuan ($41,425) and 400,000 yuan. With constant improvement and modifications and decreased costs with an expanded production scale, Wang expects that the application prospect of the spherical robot will expand to home appliances or toys.

Research into the spherical robot started in 2017 when Wang found inspiration from the idea by a research team at Uppsala University in Sweden. Since spherical robots represent a new branch in the field of robotics with limited prior work to draw upon, Wang's team overcame numerous challenges during the development process such as overcoming obstacles in complex terrains while maintaining relative balance.