Professor Alan Smeaton’s research on dogs and AI working together to predict seizures features in The Little Book of Irish Research.

Dogs can predict epileptic seizures in their owners. They can smell warning chemicals produced by the human body. The team at Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics at DCU use wearable sensors on dogs to convert predictive behaviour into real time reporting. The technique uses Machine Learning and AI to interpret data produced by a dog’s physical reactions.

If the dog has been trained to respond by spinning around, for example, that movement can be ‘read’ by a collar sensor and reported directly to the owner or carer via another device.

Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris TD, launched the Little Book of Irish Research last week and confirmed the book will made available to school children across the country as part of Science Week.