By Tim Binnall
Famed archaeological site Pompeii has a futuristic new denizen in the form of an autonomous robot dog has been enlisted to inspect and study the iconic location. The somewhat surreal melding of the ancient and the modern was announced by the popular tourist attraction on Monday in a press release which detailed the intriguing experiment. According to administrators of the Pompeii Archaeological Park, the uncanny 'creature' dubbed Spot will explore the legendary ruins on its own looking for issues that might go unseen by human inspectors.
Pompeii's caretakers hope that unleashing the robot dog upon the site will "improve both the quality of monitoring of the existing areas and to further our knowledge of the state of progress of the works in those areas undergoing recovery or restoration," ultimately improving the overall safety of the ruins. One area of significant interest to officials at the site are tunnels that were made by grave robbers long ago, since such shafts are particularly challenging for researchers to study. Describing those locations as "extremely precarious," Pompeii director Gabriel Zuchtriegel marveled that "the use of a robot could signify a breakthrough that would allow us to proceed with greater speed and in total safety."
Spot is not the only new piece of advanced technology being put to use at the park as they are also utilizing a rather fantastic drone, dubbed the Leica BLK2FLY, which is the "first flying laser scanner capable of autonomously conducting 3D scans." Much like the robot dog, the wondrous UAV will collect an array of data heretofore unavailable to those working to maintain the ancient site. The two piece of equipment, administrators say, are "part of the broader Smart@POMPEI project" which aims to modernize the management of the park using "an integrated technological solution."