A police dog is invaluable to law enforcement. These dogs are trained to detect firearms, drugs and explosives. They can also assist in the search for missing persons or suspects. Police dogs are also useful for surveillance and protection, as well as for special tasks such as law enforcement and crowd control. Although the usefulness of these dogs has been demonstrated, under certain conditions, the support of technology could increase their performance and thus transmit information more quickly to the handler for a faster and safer intervention.
The results indicate that the joint use of technology and police dogs is functional. The five 15-minute sessions conducted in the laboratory under controlled conditions showed that the dog could carry the acquisition and calculation equipment without impairing its ability to perform its task. The 3D map data was flattened to 2D to provide a map that could be directly interpreted by the operators, which allowed a better visualisation of the results obtained.
Experiences show that the joint use of technology and the dog is functional. However, more research is needed to measure the impact of the technology on the dog’s performance in real-life scenarios. In addition, the use of additional sensors could improve the accuracy of the data collected by the system.