Working dogs equipped with high-tech tools

‘We’ve developed a platform for computer-mediated communication between humans and dogs that opens the door to new avenues for interpreting dogs’ behavioural signals and sending them clear and unambiguous cues in return,’ said Dr. David Roberts, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State and co-lead author of a paper on the work. ‘We have a fully functional prototype, but we’ll be refining the design as we explore more and more applications for the platform.’

According to NC State, the platform is a harness that fits onto the dog, and which is equipped with a variety of technologies.

‘There are two types of communication technologies,’ said Dr. Alper Bozkurt, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-lead author of a paper on the work. ‘One that allows us to communicate with the dogs, and one that allows them to communicate with us.’

‘Dogs communicate primarily through body language, and one of our challenges was to develop sensors that tell us about their behaviour by observing their posture remotely,’ Roberts said in a statement. ‘So we can determine when they’re sitting, standing, running, etc., even when they’re out of sight – a harness-mounted computer the size of a deck of cards transmits those data wirelessly.