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STORY: Could this four-legged ‘robodog’ eventually replace guide dogs?

Its Swiss developers are testing its ability to navigate the real world -

and keep a blind or visually impaired person safe.

And they say it could have applications even beyond that.

The team at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology say they've put together a commercially available robotic dog - and their own sensors and software.

Researcher Davide Plozza explains how it works.

"Now we are using two dimensional Lidar and also depth cameras, which means our cameras both see the pictures, RGB images, but also the depth. So you can create a depth map of the environment."

"It can create a map on the spot and then can decide which is the best path to take to reach the target. And also, in the meantime it can avoid dynamic obstacles like if some people or some other obstacles show up which were unexpected, the system can successfully avoid them."

The team says the robodogs can be programmed to perform specific tasks in environments its never seen before - unlike real dogs.

That means it could also work to do things like help the elderly - or survey damaged buildings.

Professor Michele Magno:

“We can have robots that are helping old people, we are having some different kinds of robots that can be used for drug detection, actually in the buildings for example we are also working on automatic detection of the damaged infrastructure. So, I think the same technology can be used in different kinds of applications."

Despite the potential of such a robodog, even the team acknowledges how hard it would be to give up the real thing.

“So, I think this robot can really over perform the dogs but also can over performs humans and can be really helpful. But me personally I will still buy a dog."