Robot dog that collects toxic air in dangerous places is created by researchers

Researchers developed a robot dog which collects air particles to allow analysis of the composition of the atmosphere in potentially dangerous situations . Equipped with an articulated arm, the tool under development can reach places inaccessible to humans.

In testing, the device was sent to landfills, sewage systems, fire scenes and chemical warehouses. The prototype captured the air from these environments and allowed the search for dangerous volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Published in the magazine Analytical Chemistryfrom ACS, in the study the group of researchers describes the tests carried out with the robot dog.

Performing a task that would be very dangerous for technicians, the robot accesses environments with potentially toxic air and returns the material to a portable mass spectrometer — an instrument that allows the analysis of the composition of a sample.

The study proved that the device makes this journey in less time than it would take a person to transfer the samples to an external laboratory.

The team plans, in the future, to develop mobile detection systems for dangerous gases and volatile organic compounds to insert them into devices that can, like the robot dog, be controlled remotely, such as aerial drones and small ships.

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