Human-like Traffic robots installed in Kinshasa

Two human-like robots have been recently installed in high-traffic areas riomphal boulevard of Kinshasa at the crossing of Asosa, Huileries and Patrice Lubumba streets to control the stream of vehicles and facilitate drivers and pedestrians negotiate the roads carefully. Kinshasa is the extensive capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The prototype traffic robots are built of aluminum and stainless steel to facilitate the people year-round in hot weather.

The prototypes objective is to relieve the traffic afflictions of commuters and decrease the number of road accidents in the center of Kinshasa, a city of some 10m people.

The team behind the new robots are a group of Congolese engineers based at the Kinshasa Higher Institute of Applied Technique, known by its French acronym, ISTA.

Vale Manga Wilma, president of the DRC’s National Commission for Road Safety, told, “It is an modernization about road safety.”

He further added, “The traffic is a major dilemma in the rush hours, with the robots’ policemen intelligence, the road security in Kinshasa turn into very simple.”

The robot is eight feet tall; the robot traffic wardens are on duty 24 hours a day, their towering — even scarecrow-like — mass visible from far away. They are featured by solar panels and are outfitted with revolving chests and supervision cameras that trace the stream of vehicles.

Featuring green and red lights, Kinshasa’s robot cops are intended to combine some of the functions of human officers and traffic lights. The anthropomorphic robots can elevate or bow their arms to prevent passing vehicles or let others pass, and are also programmed to speak, demonstrating to pedestrians when they can cross the road.