Imagine spending your entire career in the Global Physical Security industry working your way up the corporate ladder, moving from one security guard services company to another. You grow to learn the industry lingo – terms such as “HPW,” “UBOT,” and “Verbal Judo” have become second nature to you. You continue expanding your knowledge base with professional security training, industry association seminars and countless site tours of Global Security Operations Centers (GSOCs) to analyze various ways to execute the mission in the field.
You built a network of strong relationships with industry experts, decision makers and career security professionals and soon became a trusted advisor for maximizing security program effectiveness through strategic recommendations based on years of experience. The potential of a site security team, or of a site security program, were what you had truly come to know.
Then one day out of the blue you are presented with an opportunity to drastically shift gears and start anew while helping to trailblaze a new industry. You are offered a position at an organization that is at the bleeding edge of AI, SaaS, Robotics and Self-Driving technology. This organization is the epitome of “cutting-edge…” it is Knightscope. You found yourself at the crossroads during a time when Autonomous Security Robots were transforming from what was once Hollywood fiction to what is now a reality in Global Physical Security. You do some soul searching. You imagine all of the possibilities and then you accept the position after considering the alternative: getting left behind in a struggling profession – an industry ripe for disruption.
On your first day at the office, you venture into a complete unknown. It’s a feeling of exciting uncertainty you haven’t felt in years. You meet the team and can’t believe how overwhelmingly kind, happy and highly intelligent each member of your new work family is. It almost seems unreal, but it gives you a deep feeling of warmth towards this new chapter in your career. You draw some comparisons as you gradually come to know your new work environment. What you once knew as a training room & training manager have now become a sea of workstations belonging to software programmers and machine learning models. A security guard uniform room is now a production area dedicated to custom outfits for Robots with client-specific logos, paint colors and designs. The old, dark dispatch center and scheduling team workspace morphed into a state-of-the-art 24/7 Knightscope Network Operations Center (KNOC) with a team of specialists monitoring real time diagnostics for a fleet of Robots. This is an entirely new world indeed!
As you learn about the Autonomous Security Robot (ASR) itself, you notice some similarities. The Robot patrols at walking speed just as an officer on foot patrol would. And, just as a Security Guard had eyes, ears, boots on the ground and voice, the Robot has eye-level, streaming video; live audio; wheels on the ground: and pre-recorded broadcast messages and intercom. With the same purpose of security guards patrolling in golf carts or patrol vehicles with revolving lights as a deterrent, ASRs have a highly visible lighting design and strobe effect that could be seen from over 1,000 feet away.
Similar to the original purpose of a security guard, the ASR is meant to deter, detect, observe and report. However, you quickly realize that there are many differences. The Robot doesn’t just have “eyes,” it has 360-degree HD video with powerful analytics making it more capable of detecting a human that the human eye may not even be able to see under certain conditions. In addition, it records everything 24/7 and stores it for instant recall at a later date. It isn’t reliant upon human memory or note taking. It has daylight / low light recording capability of everything it encounters. It also doesn’t just have ears, but a sensitive 16-microphone array with two-way audio functionality allowing humans to have a live conversation with another through the Robot itself as the communication medium.
Throughout your career, you interfaced extensively through a variety of proprietary, web-based softwares or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models. It had been offered often in tandem with other security guard services to expand the site security team’s incident reporting accuracy, facilitate more timely communication and as a system for performance checks and balances. But the software was always dependent on the security officer manually selecting from various drop-down menus, typing reports or onto a tablet or smart phone device, all the while taking the officer’s attention away from their current patrol or coverage area. Now, the Autonomous Security Robot is recording everything automatically, patrolling autonomously and continuously while it reports incidents or “Alerts” in real time via email, text, cloud-based software notifications or by initiating an intercom call.
The Autonomous Security Robot isn’t reliant upon completing various in-person or online training courses, but rather on machine learning, deep learning and refining its detection capabilities over time and moving toward reducing or even eliminating its margin of error. You recall an experience in the past when you were unable to remember a license plate number that could have led to catching a bad guy. And now, these ASRs are recording license plate numbers continuously… in 360 degrees… and can detect and alert you of a license plate it was asked to look for years earlier belonging to a Person of Interest (POI). They can even monitor how long a particular vehicle has been parked in a particular area and determine whether or not an Alert should be generated to flag something suspicious or even just a parking violation.
These Autonomous Security Robots can also detect cell phone or suspicious device names within a 492-foot radius and read the heat signature coming from a human, a potential source of fire or thermal hazards. They can, in a sense, see in the dark.
In reflection, and in honor of Mark Twain, you threw off your bowlines and sailed away from that safe harbor that you once knew as your career. You are now catching the trade winds in your sails and exploring, dreaming and discovering your new future.
If you think a career at Knightscope is for you, head over to our Careers Page to learn more. Join Us and Be a Force for Good!
