Equipped with 360-degree cameras and onboard processors, these vehicles conduct continuous, unmanned patrols, comparing faces and number plates against watchlists in real time and forwarding potential matches to a command centre. China has deployed fleets of these vehicles in several cities from late 2025, framed by authorities as part of a broader strategy to embed AI throughout everyday policing and reduce reliance on human patrol officers.

The technology combines several capabilities already tracked separately elsewhere on this site, facial recognition and automatic number plate recognition in particular, into a single autonomous platform. That combination, and the removal of a human officer from the vehicle entirely, is what distinguishes it from either capability deployed on its own.