‘Robot Dog’ helping patrol National Guard base

By Paulina Aguilar

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    PORTLAND, Oregon (KPTV) — In December 2021, the Portland Air National Guard’s 142nd Security Forces Squadron received a new ‘Robot Dog’ that will conduct video surveillance and give warning without putting humans in danger. The ‘Robot Dog’ is a Quadruple unmanned Ground Vehicle, or Q-UGV, named Rover Shock.

Technical Sargent, Jamie Cuniff says it will help save lives and is excited what this will bring for the future.

“When I think about a potential that we have with this capability, I get excited about it. If you have a scenario where something is remote, you have an aircraft that doesn’t have the capability to fly and they’re out an airfield in a small town and you got to send people out you can send a dog with them they can program a route, have the dog walk that route,” says Technical Sargent, Jamie Cuniff.

For now, Rover will walk perimeters or specific areas to provide real time feedback and help practice responding to threats and incidents. Rover also has thermal capability to identify targets. Cuniff also says, it can be used in dangerous situations instead of having humans in harm’s way and can help take the place of 4-5 human bodies.

“Your consistently watching, looking at the same thing for hours due to that fatigue factor that comes in. My eyes get tired, some people will look around and see something shiny and they’re not looking over here, this is just very dedicated,” says Cuniff. “You can use it in potential Sieben chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear environments to send it out when you don’t want humans out there. You can send it into buildings if you have a potential threat inside of a building to get a real time surveillance video feedback, potentially get a layout of the building Find out where the person is or people are.”

Rover is 100 lbs. and can withstand any kind of weather, but it does have its limitations but is excited for its future capabilities.

“The object detection with the way that I robot a set up it’s not optimal. So, if a truck is parked in the way and I’ll try to get around it but not in the most agile way,” says Cuniff. “We will have the ability to engage a person through the dog using a speaker microphone. Whoever’s monitoring it will be able to speak to that person and do a field interview without actually being in the field. If they determine it to be a threat at the same time sending a mobile unit out to them directly interact with that person.”

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