MAN'S BEST FRIEND: FIREFIGHTER AND WARFIGHTER ROBOT DOGS
April 27, 2023Mac Caltrider
robot dogs
Ghost Robotics Quadruped Unmanned Ground Vehicles (Q-UGV) pose for a photo at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, July 27, 2022. US Space Force photo by Senior Airman Samuel Becker.
The New York City Fire Department deployed a robot dog to help look for survivors following a parking garage collapse in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday, April 18, 2023. The remote controlled canine helped confirm the collapse killed one person and injured five more. The search-and-rescue mission marked the first time the department has deployed the robot in a real-world operation. The use of the robot dog doesn’t just herald a new era of civilian search and rescue, it also signals a change in military operations.
The FDNY’s robot — nicknamed Spot for its Dalmatian-like paint job — is a new tool the department purchased from Boston Dynamics last year. It takes a team of three experienced firefighters to operate but eliminates the need to send a human firefighter into certain dangerous environments. According to the robot’s operator, Stephen Millet, Tuesday’s collapse was the exact type of scenario for which Spot was designed.
“Both sides of the building were bowed out. The garage had collapsed from the fourth floor down to the first, leaving all the cars nose down, one on top of each other. It looked like if you sneezed, the whole structure was going to fall,” Millet told Coffee or Die.
https://coffeeordie.com/robot-dogs/
