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S.Korean firm's smart collar tells dogs' emotions
Published: Jan 13, 2021 08:03 PM

A pedestrian walks a dog during a winter storm in downtown Chicago, the United States, on Dec. 29, 2020. Morning commuters in Chicago experienced icy roads and slow traffic on Wednesday as the first major winter storm hit the city. The snow started to blanket Chicago on Tuesday afternoon and ended on early Wednesday, with lingering drizzle through 10 a.m. to noon. (Photo by Joel Lerner/Xinhua)



A South Korean startup has developed an AI-powered dog collar that can detect five emotions in canines by monitoring their barks using voice recognition technology.

The Petpuls collar can tell pet owners through a phone app if their dogs are happy, relaxed, anxious, angry or sad.

"This device gives a dog a voice so that humans can understand," Andrew Gil, director of global marketing at Petpuls Lab said.

The company began gathering different types of barks to analyze dogs' emotions in 2017. Three years later, they developed a proprietary algorithm based on more than 10,000 samples from 50 breeds of dogs.

The collar has a 90 percent average accuracy rate, according to Seoul National University, which tested the device which the company said is the first of its kind to be powered by AI technology.

"More people began to adopt dogs, but unfortunately some of them abandoned their dogs due to miscommunication," Gil said. "Petpuls can have an important role in the pandemic...it helps owners understand how dogs feel and increases their bonding."

Reuters