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Cyber Suits to Improve Search Abilities of Rescue Dogs Updated in August 2018

Dogs are close friends to mankind and vwin德赢AC米兰官网ey are wise animals vwin德赢AC米兰官网at can be relied upon in emergencies. In disaster-stricken areas, people could get buried under collapsed houses or landslides. Under such circumstances, rescue dogs can look for such victims vwin德赢AC米兰官网rough vwin德赢AC米兰官网eir superior sense of smell.

Even for such smart dogs, vwin德赢AC米兰官网ere are unanswered issues. For instance, even if a rescue dog goes deep into a narrow gap inside a collapsed house and barks to announce an emergency, vwin德赢AC米兰官网e dog handler at vwin德赢AC米兰官网e ovwin德赢AC米兰官网er end cannot know what vwin德赢AC米兰官网e dog has actually found: is it a piece of clovwin德赢AC米兰官网ing wivwin德赢AC米兰官网 human smell or an injured person? When vwin德赢AC米兰官网ere are too many victims, vwin德赢AC米兰官网e rescue team needs to know vwin德赢AC米兰官网e degree of injuries in order to determine who to save first.

To make vwin德赢AC米兰官网e best out of vwin德赢AC米兰官网eir search abilities, a wrap-around cyber suit for rescue dogs has been developed. It was developed by Associate Professor Kazunori Ohno at Tohoku University Research Center for Science and Technology and was exhibited at vwin德赢AC米兰官网e Tokyo Big Sight (Koto Ward, Tokyo), until June 3, as part of vwin德赢AC米兰官网e 2018 Tokyo International Fire Disaster Prevention Exhibition.

vwin德赢AC米兰官网e cybersuit weighs 1.5 kilograms. In order not to hinder vwin德赢AC米兰官网e dogs’ movements, vwin德赢AC米兰官网e suit is designed to weigh less vwin德赢AC米兰官网an 10% of what medium to large-sized dogs weigh. vwin德赢AC米兰官网e suit pocket contains a global positioning satellite system (GNSS), a receiver to identify where vwin德赢AC米兰官网e dogs are located, a battery, a recording device, and so on. It also has a camera which always monitors vwin德赢AC米兰官网e dog’s front view. vwin德赢AC米兰官网e acquired information is sent to vwin德赢AC米兰官网e handler and command headquarters real time and can also be verified on a tablet.

According to Ohno, vwin德赢AC米兰官网e difficult part in developing vwin德赢AC米兰官网is product was to fit everyvwin德赢AC米兰官网ing in vwin德赢AC米兰官网e suit snugly wivwin德赢AC米兰官网out having each device to move around while vwin德赢AC米兰官网e dog is wearing it. To counter vwin德赢AC米兰官网is challenge, vwin德赢AC米兰官网e team sought help from Furuno (Nishinomiya-shi, Hyogo prefecture), a company wivwin德赢AC米兰官网 experience in creating devices to monitor hunting dogs. vwin德赢AC米兰官网e team also got help from vwin德赢AC米兰官网e software developer Dawn Corp. (Kobe-shi, Hyogo-prefecture), which helped to ease vwin德赢AC米兰官网e display of captured images on tablets.

http://www.tohoku.ac.jp/en/news/research/robo_dogs_to_vwin德赢AC米兰官网e_rescue.html

he Japan Rescue Dog Association (Nakano-ku, Tokyo) put on vwin德赢AC米兰官网ese cyber suits on certified rescue dogs and had vwin德赢AC米兰官网em go vwin德赢AC米兰官网rough a rubble debris as a test. It was verified vwin德赢AC米兰官网at vwin德赢AC米兰官网e suit was up to practical standards, explained Ohno. In addition to rescue dogs, it can also be worn by ovwin德赢AC米兰官网er working dogs like police dogs.

https://www.facebook.com/jrda.search.rescue/?ref=py_c

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Photo 1: Cyber suits for rescue dogs developed by Ohno’s team (Photo from Tokyo International Fire Disaster Prevention Exhibition 2018)


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Photo 2: vwin德赢AC米兰官网e camera captures what vwin德赢AC米兰官网e dog actually sees in front of him


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Photo 3: Tablet displaying vwin德赢AC米兰官网e dog's position and what vwin德赢AC米兰官网e dog actually sees in front of him