Washington: The US Army is not only advancing its artillery but also equipping the canine squad of the Army. Dogs are wearing goggles not just as an accessory. These goggles are augmented reality devices designed specifically for use by canine members of the military so that they can be guided more accurately. Military dogs are in charge of sniffing areas for explosives, land mines but with assistance of trainers who usually need to be nearby to give them commands. The human handlers don’t have their companions’ ability to sniff out bombs and could accidentally set them off. This may put the life of the human handler and the dog at risk. These goggles will allow them to issue directional commands from afar and while they’re out of sight.
The AR device was developed by Command Sight, Inc. as a project for the Army Research Laboratory. According to the report, the goggles can give the dogs visual cues to follow and act, and it also has a camera so that handlers can monitor their companions’ vision. That means there’s no need for a handler to be nearby to issue hand or spoken commands at all.
Dr. A.J. Peper founded Command Sight in 2017 after identifying the need for better human-animal communication on the field. The company’s prototype uses goggles military canines are already using to protect their eyes from the elements, so the dogs don’t have to be trained to wear yet another equipment. It’s still far from ready for actual use, though. The current design is wired, which means a handler still has to be nearby, and the researchers are still studying canine perception and behavior to make the tool more effective. The good news is that Command Sight has secured funding for the next phase of the project and is planning to develop a production-level wireless device that it hopes will be ready within the next couple of years.
Augmented reality it is a futuristic technology, but a form of it has been around for years. Augmented reality is an interactive experience of a real-world environment where the objects that reside in the real world are enhanced by computer-generated perceptual information, sometimes across multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory and sensors. For example, the heads-up displays in many fighter aircraft as far back as the 1990s which showed information about the attitude, direction and speed of the plane. The video games and arcade games are also designed on the basis of Augmented reality technology