Honeywell Develops Canine-based Situational Awareness System

Honeywell has developed a situational awareness system to be mounted on dogs that will enable them to send back images and video from difficult-to-reach places.

The dogs can be guided to follow a certain path based on the controller’s command. This is accomplished by manipulating the sound waves close to the cannine’s ears.  A model of the system was displayed at the Singapore Airshow today.

The canine has a video sensor mounted on its back to pass on real-time high resolution videos to ground control. It can take illuminated night videos in the infra red band. The canine-controller can ‘see’ where the dog is going and input direction commands.

The handler system is equipped with encrypted radio so that the dog cannot be “hijacked” by rival forces. It also has a broken link restoration system in case the communication link is lost while the dog is at work finding its targets in between debris.

The system could be a lot cheaper than robotic systems being developed for search and rescue and explosive detection.