If you ever had snake trouble you'd obviously pet a mongoose, but did you know that this little rodent can sniff out landmines? The mongoose is found to be a rodent with extremely sensitive olfactory capabilities, dexterous navigation capabilities in a cluttered environment, and small enough to burrow through rubble. Researchers from the University of Moratuwa have developed a lightweight legged robot (4kg) that can move in a minefield without detonating landmines, carry a metal detector, and interact with the mongoose and the human. The remote human operator can analyze the behaviors of the animal-robot system and judge how best the system should move from a remote location. The design gave much emphasis on reducing the need to have expensive sensors and sophisticated image processing systems in order to make it as cost effective and reliable as possible. Therefore, there were only a single sonar proximity sensor and two bumper switches attached to the front of the robot.

However, further improvements are needed in the arbitration mechanism that optimizes the synergy among the human, robot, and the animal by improving the learning algorithms. The robot can learn from both the animal and the human though the teaching signals can be noisy. The animal can learn from both the human and the robot to navigate with the robot attached to it.

Via - Hackedgadgets