A security robot is shooing away homeless people from outside smart office buildings as it patrols the streets of San Francisco.
The non-profit organisation that occupies the office block has been warned by officials they will be fined $1,000 (£750) a day if they continue to use the robot without a permit.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) say the security robot – dubbed K9 – was hired to deal with the growing amounts of crime related to homeless people on the sidewalks.
The Kinghtscope K9 has been banned from use on the public streets outside the posh office block to clear the homeless as the company do not have a permit
The advocacy and pet adoption group hired the futuristic law-enforcer to work outside its office in the city’s gentrifying Mission neighbourhood.
Designed by San Francisco-based company Knightscope, the K9 robots weigh around 400lbs (180kg) and are roughly 1.5 m tall (1.5m).
‘We weren’t able to use the sidewalks at all when there’s needles and tents and bikes, so from a walking standpoint I find the robot much easier to navigate than an encampment,’ the San Francisco SPCA’s president, Jennifer Scarlett told the Business Times.
Since the robot started its work one month ago, there have been fewer car break-ins and homeless people using the space, Ms Scarlett said.
However, within a week of the automated night-watchman starting his rounds, it clashed with locals.
[They] ‘put a tarp over it, knocked it over and put barbecue sauce on all the sensors,’ Ms Scarlett said.
San Francisco is a city with one of the worst homelessness rates in the world, with over 7,000 residents out on the streets.
The robots can be rented for as little as $7 (£5) an hour, far less than the minimum wage of $14 (£10) per hour in California.
The crime-fighting robots rely on cameras, Lidar, thermal-imaging to navigate the streets.
Laser scanning can detect changes in an environment, while odour detectors can also sense other changes in the area and monitor air pollution.
They can patrol either along a prescribed route or roam randomly in a geo-fenced area.
Knightscope was set up in 2013 in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and the Boston Marathon bombing.
Its founders believed that robots could help provide law enforcement with valuable intelligence and help cut crime by up to as much as 50 per cent.
Their K3 and K5 model robots have already been picked up by a number of firms, including Microsoft, and a number of malls in the US.
The security robots are used widely to patrol car parks in the city, and are used by Uber among others.
They are also used in malls and office buildings as an autonomous presence, although they have not been without their mishaps.
In July, one of the robots was patrolling a Washington D. C. mall when it skidded and met an untimely end ‘face’ down in a pond.
Last year, one of the machines ran over a young child’s toe.