Kerala Police to go futuristic in Kochi; AI humanoids for traffic control, armoured robotic vehicles for patrols

Kochi: Imagine a traffic cop who never tires under the scorching sun, or an armoured autonomous vehicle that patrols city streets for days without human intervention. Kerala Police is preparing to bring both into the field, turning to artificial intelligence and autonomous machines to ease manpower shortages and strengthen policing.

A humanoid robot that directs traffic and flags violations will be paired with a 500-kg tracked Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) capable of extended surveillance, difficult-terrain operations and disaster relief. The two systems are being developed by Kochi-headquartered I Hub Robotics, with Kerala Police signing an MoU with the company at the Cocon 2026 cybersecurity and policing conference.

“We have formally signed the MoU, completing the discussions and ideation phase of the project. Some of the technologies involved are currently military-grade and will need to be customised and scaled down to suit the requirements of the state police. Trials will begin shortly, followed by deployment,” Ankit Asokan, SP (Cyber Operations), told Onmanorama.

A robot cop at busy junctions
The first system, Daksha Generation 2, is a vision-based humanoid designed to regulate traffic at intersections. Beyond directing vehicles, it can identify motorists violating signals, capture number plates and images, and transmit alerts to the Kerala Police Cyberdome control room.

Athil Krishna, founder of I Hub Robotics, said the system aims to reduce the physical strain on traffic officers who spend hours at busy junctions in extreme weather conditions

“Traffic policing is very difficult because the temperature right now is extremely high. Using humanoids, this is a robot to control traffic policing. If it’s a four-way junction, properly vision-based, it will analyse and manage the traffic. Normally, as a human does it, it will do it the same way. But this will be fully AI-integrated. The entire vision data is handled by a model called Viveka. This is the first time in India that humanoids are being deployed for traffic policing,” Krishna said.

Daksha runs on Viveka, an indigenously developed 3.3-billion-parameter Vision-Language-Action (VLA) foundation model trained from scratch. The company says the system also incorporates safeguards against harm to people.

“We already have an integrated safety system; we call it Viveka’s third layer, where it doesn’t autonomously harm humans,” Krishna said.

‘Kavach’ for non-stop patrolling
While Daksha is designed for traffic management, Kavach is intended to address the manpower demands of continuous patrolling and surveillance. The autonomous tracked vehicle can navigate without an operator and remain operational for extended periods.

“Currently, we require a lot of manpower in order to increase patrolling and to cover each end of the city. In order to counter that, we have built Kavach. Kavach is an autonomously navigated ground vehicle. It doesn’t require any operator or manpower to utilise. It comes with two days of battery life; hence, non-stop working for two days, which no manpower can match. Plus, there is an on-board generator which basically charges the battery once it drops below a certain threshold. At that point of time, the runtime of Kavach increases up to 12 days,” said Ishan Jain, head of embedded systems at I Hub Robotics.

The vehicle features ballistic armour, IP65/IP68 weatherproofing and an operating threshold of -50°C. Its navigation system combines spinning 3D LiDAR, depth sensors and Nvidia Jetson Thor processing to map outdoor environments and chart routes autonomously without relying on pre-programmed paths.

Kavach can climb slopes of up to 45 degrees, carry a two-tonne payload and traverse water bodies while half-submerged. Its modular mounts can accommodate water cannons, turrets and tear gas launchers for crowd and riot control.

However, offensive equipment will remain under human control.

“That is currently not autonomous because that’s an offensive part, and that will definitely hurt someone. That is totally in the control of the operator,” Jain said.

Beyond policing, the vehicle could support disaster response, carrying supplies into landslide-hit areas and other locations inaccessible to conventional police vehicles.

I Hub Robotics operates from Edappally, with manufacturing facilities in Kalamassery. Initial trials are expected to begin shortly in designated jurisdictions, with field integration targeted within the next two quarters, or six months.

The pilot programme will establish operational protocols in coordination with Cyberdome before any wider statewide deployment.