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Robot ou humain ?

Security patrol

Security guard on patrol vs Autonomous patrol robot (MaaS)

Estimations modélisées par Whirrwork, pas des faits. Méthodologie · Bilan des prévisions

Humain · Par an228 704 $USGuard on site
Robot · Par an151 754 $USPatrol robot as a service
Délai de retour sur investissement0 mois
Année de basculedéjàBase-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers the robot option is clearly cheaper.

États-Unis · USD · BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation

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Charge de travail
Hypothèse

Patrol hours needed per day (24 = round the clock).

Hypothèse

Operating hours per day.

Hypothèse

Days per month (every day).

Hypothèse

Active months per year.

Personnel
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 33-9032.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Wages and salaries were 70.0% of total employer compensation cost for private industry workers in June 2026 (ECEC), so total cost = wage / 0.70.

ilostat.ilo.org

Nominal 4.4% a year, 2015-2025 (ILOSTAT hourly earnings).

Hypothèse

One guard-hour covers one patrol-hour.

Robot
Hypothèse

One robot-hour covers one patrol-hour of a defined route (outdoor lots, perimeters).

Knightscope

Midpoint of Knightscope's marketed $6-$12 per robot-hour on an annual 24/7 contract.

Hypothèse

Site survey, connectivity and alarm-centre integration.

Hypothèse

Contract length in years.

Hypothèse

Share of hours the robot patrols (charging is scheduled).

Hypothèse

Hours lost to faults, covered by a guard.

Hypothèse

Share of guard hours spent on things a patrol robot cannot do: responding, access control, talking to people. A person stays on call for these.

Hypothèse

Remote-monitoring minutes per robot-hour (watching alerts, often shared across sites).

Hypothèse

Included in the contract.

Hypothèse

Electricity price per kWh (USD). Check your bill; energy is rarely a big line.

Finances
Hypothèse

Annual financing / discount rate. Nobody publishes yours; 8% is a round mid-2026 commercial borrowing guess.

Hypothèse

Years in the NPV comparison.

Hypothèse

Share of a human service price that is labour (rises with wages). Used to escalate and to adjust US service prices to other countries.

Hypothèse

Share of a robot service price that is labour (pilot, technician). The rest is equipment, which learning curves make cheaper.

Hypothèse

Share of a lease or RaaS fee that pays for hardware (learns down). The rest is service and support (moves with wages).

Download these results (CSV)

Résultats

OptionPar moisPar anPer unit (patrol hour)Coût initialDélai de retour sur investissementBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Humain Guard on site Référence 19 059 $US228 704 $US26,12 $US— — — —
Robot Patrol robot as a service 12 646 $US151 754 $US17,33 $US3 000 $US 0.5 mois 1 %
Utilisation 72 %
 362 527 $US

What moves the answer most

Each bar shows the 5-year NPV of the best robot option when one input moves to the low or high end of its range, with the rest held at your values.

5-year NPV vs baseline: Patrol robot as a service5-year NPV vs baseline: Patrol robot as a serviceWork that stays humanlow value: 0.15 → 474 997 $UShigh value: 0.6 → 221 940 $USWorkloadlow value: 8 → 118 842 $UShigh value: 24 → 362 527 $USHourly wagelow value: 14.624000000000002 → 247 322 $UShigh value: 21.936 → 477 732 $USSupervisionlow value: 2 → 406 667 $UShigh value: 20 → 208 037 $USSubscription per robot-hourlow value: 6 → 432 694 $UShigh value: 12 → 292 361 $USEmployer on-cost multiplierlow value: 1.2790000000000001 → 302 063 $UShigh value: 1.579 → 422 992 $USWork lost to failureslow value: 0 → 382 390 $UShigh value: 0.1 → 316 180 $USFinancing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → 391 318 $UShigh value: 0.12 → 328 427 $USWage growth per yearlow value: 0.0236 → 341 663 $UShigh value: 0.0636 → 384 192 $US362 527 $USlow valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/security-patrol/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.

Cost per unit to 2035

Real terms (today's money). Robot hardware follows Wright's law; wages follow each country's history. Shaded band: robots-slow to robots-fast scenarios. Estimations modélisées par Whirrwork, pas des faits.

ChartCoût humain par unité (Base), Coût robot par unité (Base), Coût robot par unité (Robots : progrès rapide), Coût robot par unité (Robots : progrès lent). Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/security-patrol/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.0,00 $US10,00 $US20,00 $US30,00 $US2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / patrol hourscenario rangeCoût humain par unité (Base)Coût robot par unité (Base)Coût robot par unité (Robots : pr…Coût robot par unité (Robots : pr…Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/security-patrol/). Modelled estimate,…

Année de bascule: déjà

What the spreadsheet misses

Sécurité
A robot cannot intervene, give first aid or de-escalate. It detects and reports; someone still responds.
Qualité
Robots never skip a round and record everything; guards notice context.
Flexibilité
Guards do access control, deliveries, lost children. Robots patrol.
Edge cases
Stairs, rain, crowds and vandalism are known problems. One famously drove into a fountain.
Customer experience
Visible deterrence cuts both ways: some visitors like it, some find it creepy.
Jobs and redeployment
In practice robots replace overnight rounds on big lots; people move to response and monitoring.
Réglementation
Licensing applies to guards, not robots; recording and privacy law applies to robot cameras (GDPR in the EU/UK).

Voir aussi

Sources de cette page

Les notes et les sources sont en anglais ; la version anglaise fait foi.

  1. Knightscope robots: effective $6-$12 per hour on an annual 24/7 Machine-as-a-Service contract Knightscope, 2026-10 · vendor
  2. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (median hourly wage by occupation) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025-05
  3. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026: wages and salaries 70.0% of private-industry compensation (series CMU2020000000000P) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026-06
  4. Mean nominal hourly earnings of employees by sex and occupation (ISCO-08), DF_EAR_EHRA_SEX_OCU_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), from national labour force and earnings surveys, 2025
  5. Labour cost levels by NACE Rev. 2 activity (lc_lci_lev): Germany 2022-2025, total labour cost vs wages and salaries per hour Eurostat, 2025
  6. Rates and thresholds for employers 2025 to 2026 (employer Class 1 NIC 15% above £5,000) HM Revenue & Customs, 2025-04-06
  7. 令和6年賃金構造基本統計調査 (Basic Survey on Wage Structure 2024), table 1 by occupation Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan (via e-Stat), 2024-06
  8. Average monthly earnings of employees by sex and economic activity, DF_EAR_EMTA_SEX_ECO_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), 2022
  9. Average annual wage of employed persons in urban units in 2024 (by position and by region) National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2025-05-20
  10. Euro foreign exchange reference rates (cross rates to USD), via Frankfurter European Central Bank, 2026-10-23
  11. Wright, T. P. (1936). Factors affecting the cost of airplanes. Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 3(4), 122-128 Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 1936
  12. Nagy, B., Farmer, J. D., Bui, Q. M., & Trancik, J. E. (2013). Statistical basis for predicting technological progress. PLoS ONE, 8(2), e52669 (62 technologies; Wright's law among the best hindcasters; errors grow with horizon) PLoS ONE, 2013