The Department of Firefighters of New York (FDNY, for its acronym in English) deployed on Tuesday a robot dog in order to search survivors among the rubble of the parking lot that collapsed today in lower Manhattan, as well as to evaluate the incident that has so far caused the death of one person and injuries to five others.
The authorities decided to use the mechanical dog named Spot instead of the firefighters after the nearly 100-year-old structure of the building at 57 Ann St. was deemed insecureas reported.
“Thank God we had the robotic dog that was able to get into the building. Ideally, this is what we’re talking about not sending a human being into a unstable building”, said Mayor Eric Adams, who last week presented two Digidogs along with other technological devices to patrol the city and keep it safe along with police officers.
The robot, which represents a dog, was so criticized by various civil rights defenders that the previous administration – headed by Bill de Blasio – stopped using it and it was transferred to the department of firefighters.
These criticisms seem to fall on Adams’ tenure. A video taken by a person who was on the scene and later shared on social media shows the $75,000 robotic dog walking into a pile of rubble from the building and falling sideways at the first obstacle, a broken concrete slab that he was trying to climb.
“Oh, that didn’t work out very well for the dog,” a witness said after Spot’s fall, according to video posted to Twitter by user DaDa Rocks and shared by the New York Post.
The 70-pound robot puppy specimen and created by Boston Dynamics It was purchased by the FDNY a year ago for use in search and rescue missions.
During this period, the electronic dog received a new coat of white paint with black spots that simulate Dalmatians, the dog breed of the railway stations. firefighterssays the newspaper.
Starting this summer, the Department of Firefighters New York will not be the only one to use these mechanical dogs, since it will be when the city police have their robotic K-9 unit announced by Adams a week ago to intervene in high risk situationssuch as hostage confrontations
“Digidog is now part of the toolkit we are using”reported the mayor at the time of the announcement, who also delivered the K5 autonomous security robot, equipped with various cameras, sensors and artificial intelligence, which provides real-time information to agents, and the StarChase GPS accessory, a device that allows track a vehicle fleeing from the police.
