Meet ASC Arjun, Indian Railways’ AI-powered robocop with advanced features including facial recognition
Robocop was given duties such as night surveillance and patrolling the station buildings. According to a recent report published by India TimesThe robot has already assisted Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel in identifying and apprehending two criminals.
“Robocop was deployed for surveillance and patrolling at night and detected a suspect by matching a facial image with a pre-loaded database of known criminals. The system immediately alerted the RPF CCTV Control Room at the railway station,” the report said.
CoinSwitch co-founder Ashish Singhal also spoke about the importance of distribution, saying that many people may dismiss it as a gimmick or celebrate it as innovation, but both perspectives miss the point.
ASC Arjun is equipped with various advanced features such as facial recognition, AI-based crowd monitoring, real-time alerts to RPF control rooms and the ability to make announcements in Hindi, English and Telugu.
Singhal emphasized that when Indian Railways adopted new technology, it grew rapidly due to its huge operational footprint. Emphasizing that the Railways were the first to use QR codes, Singhal wrote: “Indian Railways is one of the largest employers. When they adopt new technology, they scale rapidly. They did this with UPI. There were QR codes in railway stations before most of India understood digital payments. We did not wait for it to be perfect. We deployed, learned, fixed. Same approach here.”
Singhal also emphasized that ASC Arjun was not imported but was built locally over a year by a team in Visakhapatnam. The robot is already operational and contributes to security efforts, marking an important step in the use of domestic AI-supported systems in public infrastructure. “A team in Visakhapatnam built it from scratch. It took a year. It’s a working robot. Made here. Deployed here. Already catching criminals. Not bad for version one,” he wrote.
