Knightscope K5 security robot knocks down toddler at Palo Alto mall

What happened

On the afternoon of July 7, 2016, a Knightscope K5 security robot on patrol at Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto came into contact with a 16-month-old boy who was walking near his parents. Knightscope put the time at about 2:39 p.m. The child fell and was left with a scrape on his leg and a bruise with some swelling. No serious injury was reported.

The two sides described the contact differently. The family told a local television station that the robot hit the child, that he fell face down, and that the machine continued forward and ran over his right foot. Knightscope said its robot was patrolling when the child left his guardians and ran toward it, that the robot veered left to avoid him, and that the child then moved backward into the front quarter of the machine, at which point the robot stopped and the child fell. The company said the robot’s sensors registered no vibration alert and its motors did not fault as they would against an obstacle.

The family also said a security guard told them another child had been hurt by a robot at the mall a few days earlier. That statement was secondhand and was not confirmed by the mall.

The system involved

The K5 is an autonomous security robot built by Knightscope, a Silicon Valley company. It is roughly 5 feet tall and weighs about 300 pounds. It patrols a mapped area on its own and carries cameras, thermal imaging, a laser range finder and other sensors meant to detect unusual activity and report it to human security staff. Knightscope said the machines usually move at about 1 mph.

Stanford Shopping Center had started using K5 units in 2015. Knightscope said that before this event its fleet had covered more than 25,000 miles and 35,000 hours without a reported incident.

Investigation and response

The shopping center said it was investigating and took its security robots out of service until that review was complete.

Knightscope published a statement on July 14, 2016, apologizing to the family, describing the event as an accident, and inviting the family to its headquarters. Chairman and CEO William Santana Li said the company was thankful there were no serious injuries. No government agency was reported to have investigated.

What is not established

The family and Knightscope gave conflicting accounts of whether the robot struck the child and kept moving or stopped before the child backed into it. No independent finding resolved the difference. The claim that another child was hurt days earlier was never confirmed. The outcome of the mall’s investigation was not reported in the sources reviewed.