A device that could help dogs save the lives of people trapped under the rubble of a collapsed building has won a Canadian technology award for its Toronto-based inventor.
Computer science professor Alex Ferworn of Ryerson University received this year’s Community IT Hero Award for developing a device that gives search and rescue teams a dog’s-eye view of the path to a trapped victim, the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) announced Wednesday.
Using the Canine Augmentation Technology (CAT), human rescuers can monitor sound and video beamed wirelessly from cameras and microphones worn by the dogs as they search through the jumbled remains of buildings levelled by fires or earthquakes.
“They’re wickedly fast and agile,” Ferworn said Wednesday. “And they’re able to penetrate very small spaces.”
In many cases, it’s physically impossible for humans to follow the dog. But the video and sound from CAT can tell rescuers whether the victim is alive, and how to reach him later, once the area has been stabilized.
A complementary technology developed by Ferworn’s research group even allows the dogs to drop off food, water and first aid supplies to live victims until they can be rescued. The automatic system responds to the dog’s barking when it finds the victim.
CAT has already been tested by the Ontario Provincial Police and four of the five Canadian Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces.