Uber Hired a Robot to Patrol Its Parking Lot and It's Way Cheaper Than a Security Guard

Uber drivers who pay a visit to the company's inspection lot near Mission Bay in San Francisco will be met with a rather strange sight: a five-foot-tall, white, egg-shaped robot wheeling around the lot, on the look-out for trouble. The robot is a K5, a 300-pound security robot made by Silicon Valley start-up Knightscope. Stacy Stephens, Knightscope's VP of marketing, says Uber is a recent customer of the company. The robot has multiple high-definition cameras for 360-degree vision, a thermal camera, a laser rangefinder, a weather sensor, a license-plate recognition camera, four microphones, and person recognition capabilities. Once set up in a geofenced area, "it roams around looking for anomalies," said Stephens.