Working dogs have improved the lives of
thousands of people throughout history. However, communication
between human and canine partners is currently
limited. The main goal of the FIDO project is to research fundamental aspects of wearable technologies to support
communication between working dogs and their handlers. In this study, the FIDO team investigated on-body interfaces for dogs in the form of wearable technology integrated
into assistance dog vests. We created five different
sensors that dogs could activate based on natural dog behaviors such as biting, tugging, and nose touches. We then tested the sensors on-body with eight dogs previously
trained for a variety of occupations and compared their effectiveness in several dimensions. We were able to demonstrate that it is possible to create wearable sensors
that dogs can reliably activate on command, and to determine
cognitive and physical factors that affect dogs’ success with body–worn interaction technology.