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Singapore is obsessed with getting robots to serve you. Here's where you can find them.

Matthew Loh   

Singapore is obsessed with getting robots to serve you. Here's where you can find them.
  • Singapore has been pushing hard to fit robots into its society and workforce in recent years.
  • It's started putting robots in policing roles, cleaning jobs, retail work, and hotel services.

Robocops, robo-cleaners, robo-waiters, and robo-dogs — Singapore seems to want it all.

The city-state, home to 6 million people, even had robots nagging people to don masks and avoid crowding during the pandemic.

In the last four years, Singapore's government has showcased more than a dozen high-profile trials deploying robots in the country's airport, malls, parks, and worksites.

Many of these ventures are still in the early stages, though some have become fixtures in popular areas around the city.

Here are five ways Singapore is trying to use its brand new bots, and where you can find them.

1. Police

Singapore's police started deploying patrol robots at Changi Airport airport in April. Each bot is equipped with speakers, an LCD screen, sirens, and blinkers to communicate with people.

A camera on the bot livestreams a feed directly to a police control room, according to authorities.

There's also a small, silver button on the robot that lets people connect directly to an officer. "More robots will be progressively deployed across Singapore," local police said in a press release.

Authorities are also trialing a four-legged robot called Rover-X, which is supposed to help officers detect poisonous chemicals in situations like search-and-rescue operations.

2. Cleaners

Robotics company Weston Robot introduced its auto sweeper in Gardens by the Bay, a tourist attraction in Singapore's downtown, in a video in August.

The outdoor cleaning bot can sweep up debris like dry leaves and ply routes on its own, though it's yet to see a mass rollout in the country.

Weston Robot also designs automatic lawnmowers, which it said can cut grass on hills. Both robots were debuted by NParks, the authority in charge of Singapore's parks, in May.

Bot developers are also trialing cleaning drones that can hose down structures like Gardens by the Bay's Supertrees, local outlet The Straits Times reported in February.

In 2020, one shopping mall started trialing a $50,000 robot that wanders its premises and flashes ultraviolet lights, presumably to kill off COVID-19.

3. Park lookouts

As Singapore enacted lockdown-like conditions in the early pandemic months of 2020, the country allowed people to leave their homes for exercise.

Runners and cyclists flooded the country's parks, prompting the appearance of a Boston Dynamics dog robot and a mini buggy roaming jogging routes and blaring messages for people to stay a safe distance from each other.

The robot dog, dubbed Spot, was later deployed in 2021 to construction sites to help supervisors check if a structure is built according to the right specifications.

4. Hotel staff

Several hotels in Singapore have started featuring robot waiters in their marketing to attract holiday-goers, following the widespread use of such bots in China's hotels.

Trained to navigate hotel lobbies, corridors, and elevators, they're supposed to deliver your room service and amenities like towels, water, and hangers.

Hotel chain YOTEL offers a "Robocation," which banks on service from its twin robowaiters, Yoshi and Yolanda. It debuted the twin bots in 2017.

And The M Social Hotel, run by Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, introduced a similar robot, AURA, in 2017.

5. Retail and delivery work

In 2020, French sporting goods retailer Decathlon unveiled a stock-checking robot dubbed PAL at its flagship store in Singapore.

It's a human-sized bot that's supposed use RFID technology to check products. According to Decathlon, PAL can complete a full check of store's shelves in five hours by itself.

And at a neighborhood shopping center in Punggol, a northern residential district, shops started trialing a robot in 2022 that ferries their goods from loading bays to storefronts.

The government also debuted two robots called Camellos in 2021 that deliver groceries or e-commerce products to neighborhoods. Each robot travels at under two miles per hour, and has AI-powered navigation systems that help them avoid obstacles or stop if someone gets in their way.



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