CISF wants to use robotic canines at Indian airports, replacing dogs

CISF is now planning to deploy robotic canines instead of dogs, in a move to modernise and adapt to new technologies. Also, cost saving.

These industrial canines can sniff explosives at the airport as well as X-ray scan the luggage of passengers with their eyes.

These robotic canines will replace airport security dogs such as the German shepherds, Labradors or Belgian Malinois, which are used by the CISF in airport security, reported the Times of India (via).

This development came up for discussion at the recent Global Aviation Security Symposium, which was also attended by CISF Director General Rajesh Ranjan and Additional DG, MA Ganapathy, who oversees security across airports in India.

Duke Research on “Artificial Nose”

Duke researchers recently published a paper in which they used mouse genes to grow odor receptors that could respond to specific odors. If this could be developed into a device, the electronic nose might be able to detect some of the odors that dogs are searching for—such as cocaine or explosives.

“If you can recreate that neuronal activation pattern in a [device], then you can use that as a tool to do the same job as K9s,” said Hiroaki Matsunami, senior author of the paper and professor of molecular genetics and microbiology (source).

AI will not just replace the human jobs, but dogs as well. Woof.

And man – can they, like Jacky melt Queen’s heart? NO.

@shreyaghoshal : Meet Jacky! He is a trained sniffer dog working with the CISF. Although he does really serious work at his job but he melted Queen's heart being equally adorable ??? pic.twitter.com/ir0EhuoDH7

— Sonali Projapoti #TeamShreya (@SonaSsg) November 26, 2018

And can they do a squad drill like this? NO!

So proud to be able to support our CISF Colleagues present their skills and dedication, especially the super Dog squad ? Jai Hind ?? pic.twitter.com/nhp4WtXra3

— Javed Malik (@BLRCOO) January 26, 2018