Facial recognition-equipped robot dog to prowl US sporting venue

A robot security dog equipped with cameras and facial recognition is about to prowl a sporting venue in the United States.

Mercedes Benz Stadium, located in Atlanta, Ga., has introduced Benzie the DroneDog, designed by Boston Dynamics and developed by Asylon Robotics. Benzie will autonomously patrol 11 acres and send back real-time video during 30-minute shifts. The video feed has 1080p color and night vision capabilities, business news publisher Atlanta Business Chronicle reports.

DroneDog is a quadruped unmanned ground vehicle (Q-UGV) that pairs Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot with Asylon’s custom applications including PupPack, DogHouse and DroneIQ. The robot developer says that, aside from facial recognition, the robot can perform license plate recognition and sniff for explosives and narcotics.

DroneDog was designed both for government and commercial use. Michael Quiroga, Asylon’s chief revenue officer, says that ABM Sports and Entertainment, which operates the stadium, is the first to use the technology in the sports world.

Knightscope puts facial recognition robots into casinos

Another company that wants to use robots to catch trespassers is Knightscope. The U.S.-based firm recently announced that it will be deploying its Autonomous Security Robots (ASRs) in an unnamed casino in California.

The robot, named K1 Tower, is stationary and can be equipped with facial recognition to identify high rollers, advantage players and known trespassers, the company says in a release. It is designed for use at smaller properties where mobility is not necessarily required, the firm said.

Knightscope also offers the K1 Hemisphere robot which look less like a dog and more like HAL-9000 from the cinematic classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. Its compact design was created to complement its bigger siblings for casinos and other commercial properties as well as residential communities.

The company said in August it had deployed its first two K1 Hemisphere robots at an undisclosed location in Hawaii for the final phase of product development and client testing.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  Boston Dynamics  |  casinos  |  facial recognition  |  Knightscope  |  robots  |  video surveillance