Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, was one more city plagued by traffic chaos, but since robot police officers began directing traffic, things have been changing. And now new and better models have been added to monitor the country's main roads, making things even easier.
The first thing we imagined when we read about the police robots was some kind of RoboCop as Paul Verhoeven presented in his film of the same name. Nothing could be further from reality, especially when seeing that for a year now robots have been used as traffic police in the Democratic Republic of Congo They were designed as part of a project by the authorities to reduce traffic accidents in Kinshasa, the capital of Congo. Along with the two already installed robots, three new models were added to help control traffic.
It is well known that Kinshasa is one more city victim of traffic chaos, along with corruption problems among security forces. To avoid such problems, the five police robots are monitoring the roads, detecting any infraction. Designed with enormous size, these robots use solar panels for energy, allowing them to operate all day without interruptions. The arms are equipped with green and red lights that work as traffic lights to direct traffic in the vast city where nine million people live.
The cameras, in addition to recording infractions, can take and send images to the police station, in case any driver presents problems. The three new robots have improvements that allow them to react faster than the old models, and even have names: Tamuke, Mwaluke, and Kisanga. These three models were created by a Congolese association of women engineers, and each one costs $27,500. For now, five robots have already been sent to the Katanga province in the southeast of the country, while an arrangement is expected to add thirty more robots to monitor the main roads of Congo.
