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The United States is testing quadrupedal robot dogs on its southern border to assist US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) because the territory is vast and monitoring it is critical for the nation’s security.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated that it can help CBP personnel improve their capabilities while also increasing their safety downrange.
“The southern border can be an inhospitable place for man and beast, and that is exactly why a machine may excel there,” the Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate programme manager, Brenda Long, said in a statement.
“This S&T-led initiative focuses on Automated Ground Surveillance Vehicles, or what we call ‘AGSVs’. Essentially, the AGSV programme is all about robot dogs,” Long added.
The American southwest is a region that combines a harsh landscape, temperature extremes, and a variety of other non-environmental threats that can pose dangerous challenges to border patrol agents.
The program’s goal is to use technology to force-multiply CBP presence while also reducing human exposure to life-threatening hazards.
With a thorough understanding of CBP’s technology requirements in the field, the Directorate, as the DHS’s research and development arm, is constantly identifying solutions to support the complex CBP mission.
S&T, for example, is currently supplementing CBP’s bipedal human personnel with quadruped mechanical reinforcements to assist the agency in better allocating resources.