I watched a security guard carrying a box full of money today. His armoured van had to park at the edge of a pedestrianised area, leaving him a vulnerable, 50m walk from the shop.
Today’s invention is a way to get the goodies to the van without someone wearing a crash helmet being required to defend them.
A very long extensible beam is attached to each security van. This would be part fire ladder, part robot arm. It would be steerable from inside the vehicle (just as ‘cherry picker’ platforms currently are).
Wherever the van parked, it would send the arm into a high, slow arc, until it penetrated the door of the shop. The shopkeeper would lock his/her cashbox to the arm and watch it quickly withdraw, dropping the box into an aperture in the roof.
Many shops in a given area could be served without moving the van and without anyone being placed in danger by thieves.
Withdrawal of the arm could be programmed to move semi-randomly in space, in order to lessen the danger of interception even more.