A police car for the smartphone generation, bristling with gadgetry to beat crime, is about to be unveiled on Britain’s streets.
The high-tech ‘RoboCop’ car uses facial-recognition cameras to identify known criminals, while onboard computers locate crime hotspots.
The British-built Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer may look like an ordinary police car but inside it boasts a range of cyber weapons capable of tracking down suspects and beaming evidence back to base.
The £12 000 (R174 000) of state-of-the-art gadgetry, including three computers and six cameras, means the car can predict where crimes may happen and send the officers to the scene before any offence takes place.
The vehicle has won the backing of the Association of Chief Police Officers, which set its manufacturers the challenge of designing and building a police car for the future.
MOBILE OFFICE
High-definition cameras allow the Astra to capture every movement surrounding it, recording activity on the streets and scanning people’s faces using facial-recognition software.
The car, which costs £21 020 (R195 000) and has a 195km/h top speed, is also equipped with fast broadband internet so that officers can upload images and access CCTV footage and photos from the police national database, allowing up-to-the-second intelligence-sharing. A screen on the dashboard, which looks like a satnav, displays a stream of information about people and places outside.
Vauxhall, which has a 70 percent share of the police fleet market in Britain, claims the broadband bubble around the vehicle means officers can spend an extra two hours out in the field. After successfully completing its tests earlier this year, the Tourer is now being considered by forces all over the country.
The car’s maker says it is an answer to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe’s directives for the car to be the mobile office, so officers are always out in the field.
EYES ALL ROUND
The Tourer allows for the docking of rugged ‘Toughbook’ laptops and smartphones in the glove compartment and has an aircraft-style black box behind a floor panel in the boot that continuously collects data.
Mounted on the front, rear and both sides of the roof are tiny cameras that can spot potential crime scenes while the car is moving. The cameras also provide automatic number-plate recognition, which flags up any vehicles linked to crimes.
Two more cameras are fixed on the officers and the back seat so there is a visual record of a suspect’s evidence which can also be used to provide evidence in claims of police brutality.
Dick Ellam, Vauxhall’s special vehicles manager, said: “This British-built and converted Astra will help make police officers more efficient and allow them to spend more time fighting crime.’
SPECIAL FEATURES
All of the devices communicate through 3G and a wi-fi hotspot ‘bubble’.
The car identifies villains and images are uploaded for facial-recognition tests on national database.
Cameras provide 360-degree filming which can be watched live at the command and control centre.
It has three computers: one in the boot, another for video feeds, a third in the dashboard.
Two laptops can dock in the glove compartment.
Software predicts future crime hotspots, using algorithm based on incidents and intelligence.
Computers can receive live CCTV images of crimes being committed anywhere in the country.
Cameras, front and back, read number plates which are sent to national database for intelligence.
Dashboard screen provides officers with latest intelligence.
Automatic reporting system monitors faults in the vehicle and how the driver is performing.
Fifty different data inputs go into black box in boot which relays information to police central server. - Mail On Sunday