Hey, did you see the Robo Dogs at the World Cup?

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty Carrino.

The resemblance to an actual dog is loose, but the quadrupedal robots from Boston Dynamics,

called Spot, do have four legs.

They're often used to do reconnaissance in hazardous environments.

And this month, four of them have made appearances at the World Cup Games in Dallas and New York.

We spoke with Mary Frayne, Senior Director of Product for Boston Dynamic Software and Quadruped business to learn more about Spot.

This robot is an agile mobile quadruped, so meaning it's got four legs, and it uses those four legs and its

dynamic athletic intelligence to navigate the world. So we've really designed this robot to be

able to go wherever a person could go. And once we had that mobile platform built, then you could

start to add new capabilities to the robot in the form of payloads. So the

capabilities of Spot really depends on what payloads are put on its back. What kinds of payloads can

spot carry? It really depends on the final application for Spot. Most Spot robots are in

manufacturing facilities that are really challenging places. So we're

talking pulp and paper, food and beverage manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturing, very, very

large facilities that have very dangerous areas. And what spots doing there is it's checking on the performance of the

facility. It's looking for things like puddles or issues that could be related to the health

and safety of the facility. It's looking for overheating motors and bearings. It's looking for

air leaks and steam leaks, which contribute to a lot of the energy losses of facilities like this.

So that's the primary use of spot is in data collection for these gigantic infrastructure facilities.

But spots also used in areas like nuclear remediation.

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