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How would these work better than drones with thermal cameras.

• gamegoblin 5y ago
  If there are drones that have the battery life to fly ~15km under the tree canopy without hitting any trees or branches, etc, they would also be a great option. I think the high end consumer drones have range in this ballpark (eg DJI Mavic 2 Pro can go 18km with no wind). I’m not sure how much tree avoidance would be a problem, I’ve seen some pretty cool demos of autonomous forest drones. My intuition is that the robot dogs would be slightly more robust since they can self-right if they stumble, whereas if a drone hits a small obstacle it can pretty easily come tumbling out of the air and get stuck on the ground. I think the dogs could also be made more weatherproof than drones. I bet drones would be a much better option for lightly forested areas or desert areas, though, where they can generally fly above any obstacles.
  • dagw 5y ago
    There is actually a fair bit of research going on into using machine learning and image recognition to try detect bodies under tree canopies using thermal imaging
• tomp 5y ago
  Doing drones out of visual line of sight is quite dangerous. Worst thing if a robot dog “crashes” is, you pick it up next morning to recharge it.