For thousands of years dogs have been our companions and often protectors but now, thanks to AI, robot dogs are set to step in as our new guardians. The latest Workplace Health and Safety Show in Sydney had a compelling demonstration involving an AI controlled robot dog.
As you can see in the video above, Scope the robot dog is capable of detecting if a person is injured and needs assistance. It can then alert medical personal or other authorities wirelessly to take action. A real dog cannot do this and the work environment may also be too dangerous for animal to patrol. Also most dog patrols are conducted with a handler, so this is all up to a robot to do. The product in the demo is being developed by Rapid Global.
“We developed the AI system that runs computer vision to detect man down events,” explained Rapid Global CEO, Jimmy Lee. “So when someone has fallen over, Scope will see that, head towards it to confirm the situation, and notify the site manager.”
The demo was impressive. Scope detected our test subject was down almost instantly. I love dogs but I couldn’t see my Great Dane Zuko saving the day. Unless lots of loving licks help. When you see the robot dog in action, it makes sense, not only in the workplace but in other places too.
“I think it will start in workplaces where they have more money to afford these sort of solutions and perhaps where the cost is higher to prevent these sort of safety incidents,” added Lee. “We’ve got aged care facilities as well. They are interested in trying these, looking out for elderly people that have fallen over. And definitely, as technology gets cheaper over time, we can see this being in the home setting and home use cases as well.”
I’ve already seen robots on patrol in Singapore but robot dogs are faster and more capable. The dog can also have wheels for even faster patrols and response times. I believe it won’t be long before we see robot dogs actually replacing, or partnering up with real dogs in some homes. Dogs will always be our best friend but in some circumstances an AI guardian in form of a dog might be the better choice.
We’ll have more content from the Workplace Health and Safety Show soon.
