Dubai: Participants at the World Police Summit in Dubai were thrilled by the presence of a robotic dog that was seen patrolling at the event! The sight of the state-of-the-art robot was straight out of science fiction as it was being paraded at Dubai Exhibition Center at Expo 2020 Dubai.
These robot dogs are designed to explore challenging environments — including those that are wet, dusty, confined and even toxic. This nimble, four-legged robot can sprint around in an office at home or even outdoors and are being increasingly used the military and security services.
Manea Al Mansoori, managing director of Sicuro Security System, told Gulf News that this robotic dog can map its environment, sense and avoid obstacles, climb stairs and even sniff drugs and explosives. “The robotic dog can be used in the military, for homeland perimeter security, defusing explosives and even sniffing drugs. We can install such robotic sniffers for identifying and locating explosives and drugs,” said Al Mansoori.
Performing a variety of tasks
Sicuro, an Emirati company, is a representative of Ghost Robotic and CEIA metal detectors in the UAE. The company has installed the metal detectors at the gates in Expo 2020 Dubai.
Al Mansoori believes there is a big potential in the UAE to use these ‘autonomous’ dogs as these can perform a variety of tasks in the desert, on mountains, at sea and can provide a lot of support to tactical teams. “It has five cameras with 360-degree access. Thermal cameras can also be added to it and can be used by SWAT or tactical teams,” he added.
‘Feeding GPS quadrants’
Recently, the United States tested robot dogs to patrol its borders. The robot dogs are manufactured by Ghost Robotics, a security technology company that works with the military. The idea is to have these machines patrol borders, make video recordings and scan the area around them as they patrol.
“The operator can feed the GPS quadrants of any area into the robotic dog. The robot can then operate for three-an-a-half hours on a single charge,” added Al Mansoori.
