Technology is developing so fast that regulation must catch up quickly.
Editor’s note: This article comes from “Interface News” , Reporter | .
Let human beings’ best friends, smart dogs, help police officers perform their tasks is no longer new. Over the past few decades, many police dogs have even sacrificed their lives to protect their human partners. Now, robotic dogs that once existed in American dramas may be a new partner for the police.
Boston Public Radio recently reported that a police force in the United States has tested the capabilities of robot dogs for the first time.
According to documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (hereinafter referred to as ACLU) in Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Police rented a Spot robotic dog from Boston Dynamics for a period of 90 days, which will be leased until November 2019. 5th.
Since August, the organization has made public disclosures of any documents the agency uses Spot and any records of the agency’s purchases and use of robots since 2015.
The lease agreement obtained by ACLU states that the Massachusetts Police Department’s bomber team will always own the robot and will evaluate its “law enforcement capabilities, especially remote monitoring of potentially hazardous environments.”
Robots in this test
Police spokesman David Procopio told the agency that they use Spot the same way they use other types of robots: both as “mobile remote viewing devices.” According to David, robotics is a valuable tool for law enforcement because it has the ability to sense the situation in potentially dangerous environments.
However, he did not disclose the exact details of the agency’s testing of Spot, nor did he disclose the details of the two incidents in which the robot was used outside of the test.
Boston Dynamics, which produced the robot dog, was established in 1992 as an American engineering and robotics design company with headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts. The company was acquired by Google X in December 2013 and is one of the most well-known companies in the field of robotics for developing quadruped machinesFamous.
In September of this year, Boston Dynamics began commercializing robot dogs, providing rental services to some companies, and is expected to manufacture 1,000 robot dogs in 2020. The first partner was a German startup Holobuilder. The company used robot dogs to install them with cameras, let the robot dogs walk on the construction site and take some photos to help engineers track the project progress.
In fact, in the field of intelligent robots, many researchers have begun to study quadruped robots. According to IEEE Spectrum, robotics experts in Japan have taught robot dogs a new technique: climbing ladders autonomously. The teams from Tokyo Metropolitan University and Okayama University demonstrated their quadruped robots at the 2019 IEEE / RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems on November 5.
The robot has four legs, and each leg has five degrees of freedom-that’s the key: these settings allow the robot to hold the steps of the ladder. The robot also has a series of sensors that work with a recursive neural network to guide it onto a ladder.
Image source: Tokyo Metropolitan University
When the police started using robot dogs, people’s panic also appeared. In addition to related documents, there is a video showing the robotic dog at the scene opening the door during a Massachusetts police training session. A police spokesman said the video showed how to use robots instead of police to protect people during terrorist incidents and hostage-taking situations.
Boston Dynamics’ vice president of business development Michael Perry assured WBUR that the Massachusetts Police would not use Spot as a weapon.
Perry said, “Part of our important work in our early assessments with our customers is to make sure we use robots on the same page. So we and our customers know very well that we don’t want to cause physical harm to the human body when using robots . “
The technology of robot dogs is of course advanced, but with the implementation of the application, the related supervision must also keep up. “Many times, the deployment of these technologies is faster than the response of the social, political or legal system, and we urgently need government agencies to be more transparent,” said Cade Croftford, director of the Suzhou Free Technology Bureau in Ac. “
Cover image from pexels