POLICE have charged a man who drunkenly attacked a robotic patrol droid in a car park in the United States, after the device called them for help.

The incident occurred in the car park of technology maker Knightscope’s headquarters in Mountain View, California on April 19, authorities said.

Jason Sylvain, 41, was intoxicated when he came across the K5 droid, which was conducting patrols around the building as part of product testing.

Despite the robot weighing in at a whopping 135 kilograms, he managed to tip it over.

It detected the danger and automatically alerted authorities to an intruder on the property, before sounding a loud siren.

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Sylvain attempted to flee but was detained by two employees who’d heard the robot’s distress alarm.

Meet K-5 ---the droid taken down by an alleged drunk man last week. Don't worry, he's back on patrol :) details @abc7newsbayarea at 11 pic.twitter.com/0qthDHONQq — Tiffany Wilson (@TWilsonTV) April 25, 2017

Knightscope’s vice president of marketing Stacy Dean Stephens told CNET the machine did exactly what it was designed to do.

“The ‘assault’ was detected and immediately reported,” Mr Stephens said.

“The alarms on the robot sounded, the suspect attempted to flee the scene and was detained by one of my colleagues and me until the Mountain View Police arrived.”

Sylvain now faces prowling and public intoxication charges.

It’s not the first time an independently operating robot has faced trouble in the real world.

A droid that set out to hitchhike across the US lasted two weeks before it was brutally vandalised in Philadelphia in 2015.

And a robotic shop assistant in Japan was kicked by a drunken man in the same year.