Visitors at Europe’s largest tech fair joined in with kicking a robotic dog – but it was designed for far worse.
The cute quadruped has been programmed to respond to bomb threats, such as if a suspicious package is left in a public place.
On display at Viva Tech in Paris, the dog gave its paw to shake hands with onlookers, before getting booted in the side.
It wasn’t a display of pointless animal cruelty (we hope) but was intended to show how well it keeps its balance.
Visiting the expo yesterday, Metro was surprised to see nobody managed to knock it off its feet, even when it got up onto two legs to ‘sit up and beg’.
The cost of the dog ranges from £1,600 right up to £120,000 depending on functionality.
Ana Correia, a product designer for smart locker company Lokk, told Metro: ‘The dog is under development in case of – I hate to say this word, but we need to talk about it – a terror attack. Imagine there is a bomb threat: You wouldn’t send a human; you would send the dog.
‘In case the bomb actually explodes, it’s the dog it blows up, not a human.’
The basic hardware of the dog was designed by Unitree Robotics, one of the world’s major firms in the field.
But its public service abilities are being developed by Lokk, who say robodogs like this could be deployed in city centres if suspected bombs are left in public lockers.
Already working with schools, hospitals, and major sportswear chain Decathlon, the company say that they have done more than 30 million openings throughout Portugal.
How it works is, when there is a suspected threat, the robot dog’s handlers put it near a locker.
It will then walk forward, open the locker, and check the suspicious object inside.
The dog is able to jump and leap forward, walk on two legs as well as four, has a camera which transmits information back to its handler, as well as a heat sensor which can detect dangerous material even if the door is closed.
This then provides valuable information for risk assessment, without putting a human in harm’s way.
Powered by artificial intelligence, the dog would go to the lockers after their operator activated an emergency, and could see how many doors had been open, for how long, and which ones.
Ana said it can open and close them too, and even ‘detect what is inside the lockers’, though wouldn’t reveal how as she said it was confidential.
Min Zhang, director of Europe for Unitree, said: ‘We develop robots because they can do dangerous work, boring work or dirty work in a complicated environment.’
But he said that what buyers do with them is ultimately decided by them, as ‘we supply the hardware’ and then they programme it.
‘If I want to use the robot dog to bring me a coffee, he can do it,’ he said.
A lot of people are ‘very happy to see the robot dog walking around for entertainment’, he said.
He added he did not know if the robot dog could ever survive a bomb blast, however, as this had not been tested.
Lokk co-founder Pedro de Jesus Moreira: ‘If there is any threat, the dog will be able to approach the system for us or the police to check the lockers in a safety area. He has a scanner and optical vision. In the future we are planning more features – this is just the beginning.’
In February this year, the UK government announced it was also developing robot dogs to join the bomb squad.
These ones would go a step further than simply taking the hit, and would actually defuse the bombs.
They said: ‘Robot dogs that can defuse explosives are set to revolutionise bomb disposal operations and significantly reduce the risk to military personnel.’
A new live trial led by MoD scientists found that advanced robots like these could both detect bombs using sensors, and defuse them.
The government said they plan to increase the number of tasks robots are trusted to do remotely, which would reduce the need to put humans in harm’s way.
Meanwhile, you might also find robot dogs delivering your parcels, with a trial from Evri set to take place this summer once the regulatory issues have been ironed out.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].
For more stories like this, check our news page.
