Robot Dogs Corner Car Break-In Suspect In Apartment Trash Compactor

A pair of accused would-be burglars in a Atlanta parking garage has been thwarted by a security force straight out of science fiction: robot dogs. Atlanta News First reports that a pair of robotic canines helped police corner and arrest two men allegedly entering cars and stealing items inside them. That's taking a bite out of crime.

On Thursday, May 21, security camera footage shows two masked men entering the Columbia Crest Apartments parking garage. They move from one car to the next, appearing to check for unlocked doors, then entering and rummaging through any unlocked cars they find. This is the point where a human security guard would call police and/or confront the perpetrators.

In this case, the garage was monitored by Undaunted, a security company that uses four-legged robots rather than human security guards. Upon noticing the suspicious activity in the parking garage, two robot dogs were deployed. One tracked the masked men, while the other talked with police through a two-way audio system, describing the suspects and their last known locations. Police apprehended one on the street just outside the garage, while the other hid in the area of a trash compactor. The robot kept the suspect at bay until police arrived to take him into custody.

While Undaunted's robots may seem a bit too close to RoboCop for comfort, their capabilities are limited. In keeping with Boston Dynamics' pleads, the robots are unarmed.

"We are never going to put offensive weapons on our robots," Undaunted CEO Bryan Dinner told Atlanta News First. As fun as it is to imagine K9 from "Doctor Who" stunning a suspect with its nose-mounted laser, Undaunted has no plans to do this. Instead, the robots are essentially mobile cameras and communication systems that can respond quickly and go places that permanently mounted cameras can't see. In Undaunted's video above, it's clear that a human remote operator is talking with police rather than concise computer generated speech like Siri. It's not clear whether the robot's movements are autonomous.

It may not seem so useful to replace human security guards with robots, however, some people don't take security guards seriously, while being confronted with a robot dog may at least confuse them long enough to stop what they're doing. Everything is recorded, which Undaunted can provide to police as evidence. Best of all, a human life isn't placed in harm's way, making it particularly appealing in rough areas. Things might have turned out much differently in "Five Nights at Freddy's" if Freddy Fazbear's Pizza had a robot dog instead of a human security guard.