Robots on point duty: humanoids direct traffic in the rain in Hangzhou

In the Xihu district of the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, humanoid robots took on traffic duty on a trial basis in early October. Manufacturer DEEP Robotics sent an undisclosed number of its DR02 models to junctions on Zheda Road and West Wenyi Road, to entrances and exits of scenic areas and to Xixi National Wetland Park. The robots gave hand signals, avoided pedestrians and vehicles on their own and kept working through persistent rain.

Using cameras, depth sensors and lidar, the roughly 1.75-metre-tall robots detect e-bike riders without helmets, overloaded bikes, and pedestrians or vehicles beyond the stop line, according to the company – and issue spoken reminders rather than fines. They answer tourists' questions about routes and traffic rules in several languages. The body is rated IP66 against dust and water jets.

An on-site staff member said, according to DEEP Robotics, that handing many repetitive advisory tasks to the robot leaves more time for dealing with accidents. The company describes the deployment as a field test and has not published results on detection accuracy, uptime or traffic flow.