China deploys robots as customs officers

 Oct 2, 2016 






Ten of the robots, wearing the customs colours and badges,  have started to work as customs officers at three ports in the cities of Zhuhai and Zhongshan, southern China’s Guangdong Province on Saturday, according to the local customs office.

They are the first batch of intelligent robots, to be used by Chinese customs at the ports of Gongbei, Hengqin and Zhongshan. The robots, named Xiao Hai, have state-of-the-art perception technology and are able to listen, speak, learn, see and walk.

Based on a specialized customs database, the robots can answer questions in 28 languages and dialects, including Cantonese, Mandarin, English and Japanese.

There are some particular problems they cannot solve, and customs officials said they will link the robots to their customer service hotline in the future.

With face recognition technology, the robots can detect suspicious people and raise an alarm, according to Zhao Min, director of Gongbei customs.

On 21  September, China also deployed the first security robot to join  staff at Shenzhen airport.

“AnBot”, or “Shenzhen Xiaoan” in Chinese, can work around-the-clock and react to emergencies with an electric riot fork. The intelligent guard is 1.5 meters tall and weighs about 75 kg.

With four digital cameras, the security robot is capable of autonomous patrols, intelligent monitoring and auto recharging.

It can answer passengers’ questions about flight information and communicate with people in different contexts, said an official with the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau.

In case of emergencies, AnBot can deter suspects with sound and light, and use tools like the electric riot fork to prevent crime.

The use of intelligent security robots will ease pressure on airport police in their daily patrols and save human resources, said the official.

More security robots will be deployed in different areas of the airport.

AnBot was developed by Shenzhen Public Security Bureau, the National University of Defense Technology and a domestic technology company.

Besides a booming industrial robot sector in China, robots have been increasingly used in the service sectors such as senior care and domestic cleaning.

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