Robots will soon be roaming near the San Antonio area. Though it may sound daunting to some Texans, project leaders say it’s for a good cause, and privacy is top of mind.<\/p>\n
Universal City, located 19 miles north of San Antonio, announced<\/a> on Tuesday, August 25, that a team of small bots will soon be deployed as part of its commitment to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards. The initiative is in partnership with Oregon-based Daxbot<\/a>, which creates cyborgs capable of measuring elements such as sidewalk depth, surface conditions and potential walking hazards.<\/p>\n The devices will collect data along 12 miles of busy sidewalk corridors, gathering measurements that help “develop a detailed, ground-truth record of pedestrian infrastructure,” according to Universal City. The information will be mapped and analyzed, giving engineers and planners a better understanding of areas that might impede those with mobility issues.<\/p>\n Gathered data will be used to design a capital improvement program to fix those spots, according to City Manager Kim Turner.<\/p>\n Representatives say folks might come into contact with the machines, a possibility that could evoke uneasiness or excitement among some patrons. When approached, the droids won’t record video unless a safety incident occurs, according to a city press release. A handler will be observing them nearby while they are out, said Randy Luensmann, Universal City’s director of Public Works, at a meeting<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Basically, they cannot talk to you. They make little R2-D2 (Star Wars character) noises when they’re out there,” Luensmann said. “We don’t want to encourage nobody to be in the way of them so they can do the data collection. But if you’re out there and you want to get a picture with them … it’ll actually stop, and you can be able to take a picture if you’re out there.”<\/p>\n Turner tells MySA that no personal tracking is enabled, meaning the bots “do not record or store facial images, personal details, or private interactions with pedestrians.” Additionally, Daxbots “do not log or track vehicle license plates,” unlike automated traffic enforcement systems.<\/p>\n “The cameras capture ground photos exclusively focused on the physical condition of the pedestrian infrastructure being assessed,” Turner said. “Specifically, noting slip, trip, or fall obstacles, slopes or grade of ground, location of ADA ramps and the like.”<\/p>\n Beginning the week of Monday, September 7, Daxbots will survey segments of the following corridors:\u00a0<\/p>\n Mainly, the bots will be out during daylight hours. Luensmann says the city doesn’t expect them to be deployed for more than two weeks, weather permitting.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Residents who encounter a Dax robot are encouraged to treat it as they would any road maintenance crew,” a press release states. “Daxbot keeps an on-site crew, which will respond if any maintenance or repairs are needed.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robots will soon be roaming near the San Antonio area. Though it may sound daunting to some Texans,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[847,820,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-417844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-mysanews","tag-mysastaff","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}