Robot dogs helping airmen at Barksdale Air Force Base

By BRITTANY BREEDING

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    BOSSIER CITY, Louisiana (KTBS) — In the military, service members are faced with dangerous situations all too often. Now, thanks to some ingenuity and technology, things are getting a little safer.

Barksdale Air Force Base has two new companions – robot dogs named Adam and Chappie. They can help people stay out of dangerous situations.

“It’s going to take the human aspect out of the response, so it’s going to stop me from being the one that’s next to these hazardous things, these health altering things,” said Daisy Slater, senior airman at Barksdale Air Force Base.

These robots were the idea of Master Sgt. Dominic Garcia after a deployment in Syria made him question how things could be done in a safer way.

“We applied for a grant for $1.25 million to build this out from the ground up and develop it,” said Garcia.

He brought them to Barksdale in July.

“For chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear assessment and things like that, these are the only two in the whole DOD for that,” said Garcia..

They’re continuing to develop the robot dogs.

“We can literally drop pinpoints and he’ll just walk to it on a map,” said Slater.

The possibilities are endless.

“Almost any scenario that we are presented with, whether that be a hazmat spill or even a nuclear, radiological, or biological, even in any incidents like that,” said Slater.

He said this is more than just a step towards safety, it’s showing all airmen their ideas matter.

“It means that you have an idea and there’s ways and funding and different possibilities to get that project from ideation to deployment,” said Garcia.

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