On Monday, April 12, 2021, a group of New York policemen raided an apartment building in the upscale neighborhood of Manhattan, accompanied by a robot dog weighing about 32 kilograms equipped with lights and cameras.

When the police came out of the building and people saw the robot dog, many of them panicked and considered it an example of police violence.

On April 22 of the same year, in response to people's concerns, the New York Police Department terminated the $94,000 lease of this robot dog with Boston Dynamics, its manufacturer.

Experts attribute people's panic to the many movies and TV series that featured robotic dogs as villains stalking their victims like the dog that appeared in the Metalhead episode of the Black Mirror TV series, which first aired on Netflix in 2017. The robot dog more than one person, then chases the heroine (Bella) equipped with weapons supported by LiDAR technology to determine the coordinates of the target by sending laser beams.

The story of robotic dogs did not end there. Less than a year later, the New York City Fire Department began using Boston Dynamics' Spot robot dog to aid in difficult search and rescue operations, in a much less controversial application than the New York Police Department used for this. Kind of dogs during raids.

Several months ago, the Portland Air National Guard brought in a robotic dog to help with security, which has the ability to monitor video as well as conduct ground patrols in rough terrain and jump over objects in the road, and is equipped with a 7-hour battery.

This robot dog is controlled remotely by technicians, but work is currently underway to prepare it so that it can take the initiative and control itself without human guidance.

The United States is currently testing a robotic dog that it intends to use to protect its border with Mexico and reduce the infiltration of smugglers, terrorists and illegal immigrants.

This robot dog weighs 45 kilograms and can traverse all types of terrain, as well as human-built environments such as stairs.

Various devices can be added to this robot such as thermal cameras, night vision goggles, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear sensors.

Honolulu police, the capital of the state of Hawaii, spent about $150,000 to buy robotic dogs to enter camps for the homeless and take body temperature checks, to ensure they are free of diseases, especially the Covid-19 virus.

The Vision 60 robot dog from Ghost Robotics (Ghost Robotics)

Robotic dogs outside the US

The use of robotic dogs in the security fields was not limited to the United States, but also extended to many developed countries.

On March 29, while the streets of Shanghai were deserted due to the closure caused by the spread of Covid-19 again, the residents were surprised by a robot in the form of a dog roaming the city's streets and broadcasting the instructions that residents must follow to avoid this virus, such as washing hands and wearing masks.

The reactions were mixed, with some residents enjoying watching the robot dog roaming the streets, while others were terrified of it.

In the Netherlands, the police began using robotic dogs to search within drug-manufacturing laboratories, as these laboratories are considered a risky place due to the presence of dangerous materials in them, in addition to the possibility of being robbed by armed criminals, and for this the decision was taken to introduce the robot dog to them before the entry of security men.

In Switzerland, ANYbotics is developing robot dogs for industrial environments, and meets the needs of energy companies, by providing them with optical and thermal cameras, microphones and sensors to monitor and warn of dangers posed by gas and oil.

These robotic dogs provide the ability to transmit the data they collect to a human console and analyze it via advanced software.

Armed robotic dogs

The American company, Ghost Robotics, released a robotic dog called Vision 60, which was equipped with a firearm in cooperation with the small arms company Sword International.

This robot dog is compatible with different robotic platforms, can visually magnify scenes up to 30 times, and also uses a thermal camera to support shooting in the dark within a range of up to 1200 meters.

Swiss dog Animol from Anipotex (Anipotex)

The spread of robotic dogs

As of the end of the first quarter of 2021, Boston Dynamics alone had deployed more than 500 robotic dogs for use in security and monitoring of construction sites, mines, and factories, and utility companies began using robotic dogs in high voltage and other hazardous areas.

It is expected that the entry of Chinese companies on the line, by offering robotic dogs that compete with the American and European at much lower prices, will spread very quickly.

A short time ago, in a commercial center in the Romanian capital Bucharest, the Chinese company Xiaomi showed its robot dog CyberDog, whose specifications it says exceed the specifications of the most famous American robot dog known as “Spot” produced by Boston Dynamics.

This Chinese robot dog is powered by a motor developed by the company that can provide a walking speed of 3.2 meters per second or 11.52 kilometers per hour.

This robot dog carries several cameras powered by artificial intelligence, and several high-resolution image sensors installed throughout its body, including touch sensors and an ultra-wide eye lens.

This robot dog can perform real-time analyzes of its surroundings, create paths for its navigation and destination, avoid obstacles on the road, roll, perform backflips, and respond to voice commands (thanks to its six microphones).

This robot dog can be controlled via a remote control or via a smartphone app. This robot dog is small in size and weighs only 14 kilograms.

The future of robotic dogs

Work is currently underway to develop the capabilities of robotic dogs at a rapid pace.

Researchers at Duke University in the United States (Duke) have developed a prototype that uses animal stem cells to create an “electronic nose” that smells and detects explosives, drugs and other contraband, mimicking or exceeding the capabilities of dogs trained in this field, but the final model still faces technical obstacles. It must be dissolved before it can be used in practice.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, succeeded in using an artificial intelligence technology known as Reinforcement Learning to train a robotic dog to walk from scratch in the real world, and it only took one hour to master the walk, which will reflect in the future on the cost of the robot dog.

And the robot dog began to be equipped with facial and voice recognition capabilities so that it could work efficiently as a robotic eye and ear around sensitive facilities.

Finally, we have not seen the use of robotic dogs for security purposes in any Arab country, but we expect that to change soon, and to be used especially in the civil and military construction sector.