Security dogs like German shepherds, Labradors or Belgian Malinois at the airport security may soon be a thing. Now they would have to compete with new age robotic dogs.
According to Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) officials, these factory-made robotic canines will have similar capabilities like normal security dogs who not only sniff explosives within the airport region, but can also X-ray scan the luggage of passengers with their eyes.
As of now, such robots can be found only in the airports of developed countries like the US, UK, Canada, Japan, Korea etc. for multiple purposes, especially security checks.
“Canine Robots are capable of detecting explosives and can scan the luggage of passengers using an X-Ray system fitted in their eyes.”
Apart from canine robots, CISF is also considering the use of CT scan-based screening of hand-luggage, cabin baggage, artificial intelligence, sophisticated explosive detectors and biometric control access across multiple Indian airports. Security checks which are done by Indian agencies mostly depend upon a lot on human resources but CISF, considering a change keeping in view the global threat to the aviation sector with new methods of smuggling, its adapting new technologies to put an end to drug, gold and explosives being carried via air.
The possibility of using factory-made came up at the Global Aviation Security Symposium 2018, held at Montreal, Canada.
The conference was attended by both CISF DG Rajesh Ranjan and Additional DG MA Ganapathy, who oversees the security at all Indian airports. It’s the first time when CISF attended the global aviation symposium organised by International Civil Aviation Organisation (CAO) last week and had significant bilateral discussions with European Union nations including other ICAO members, said a CISF Official.
CISF spokesperson Hemendra Singh said that GASeP (Global Aviation Security Plan) of ICAO, a future aviation security policy and programme framework, was also stressed upon during the symposium. CISF also offered its expertise in protecting critical infrastructure along with the aviation sector from the perspective of both anti-hijacking and counter-terrorism to the other countries through an increased participation in panel discussions and workshops that were conducted by ICAO.
“We already have a tie-up with the Transport Security Administration (TSA) of the United States but now we have a capacity building pact with the EU as well, which will help us explore a lot about new technologies and methods of securing our airports,” a CISF official told TOI
