Chinese company's canine companion barks, wags tail, has 12 hours of battery life

March 22 (UPI) -- A China-based robotics company on Friday announced the global release of a robotic dog companion.

Elephant Robotics in a release introduced the metaDog robotic companion.

Featuring a design inspired by the popular Husky and Shiba Inu breeds, metaDog responds touch and sound, including over 30 voice commands, the company says.

MetaDog responds to owners with barks, howls and head and eye movement, and it comes with up to 12 hours of battery life in between charges.

Elephant Robotics said metaDog is a perfect option for people who want a dog but can't have one for various reasons, such as living constraints or allergies.

MetaDog could be a good option for people dealing with loneliness. Researchers at Auckland, Duke and Cornell Universities have said companion robots enhanced with artificial intelligence could serve an aging and increasingly isolated population.

Murali Doraiswamy, professor of psychiatry and geriatrics at Duke University and member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, said, "Until society prioritizes social connectedness and eldercare, robots are a solution for the millions of isolated people who have no other solutions."

With advancements in AI technology, newer models of robots could provide deeper social connections than previous generations, but the concept of emotionally intelligent machines not new.

European researchers in 2010 unveiled Nao, a humanoid robot that can detect emotions, recognize body and facial cues and even remember interactions with people.

More recently, engineers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in December introduced Nadine, an emotionally intelligent robot who serves as a receptionist at the university.

Using Apple's Siri AI, Nadine can converse with people, remember previous interactions and express different emotions based on the conversation.

Nadia Thalmann, a robotics professor NTU's School of Computer Engineering, at the time predicted social robots like Nadine could be employed as companions and caretakers for children and elderly people in the future.

"[They could] even serve as a platform for health care services in future," she said.

MetaDog's commercial launch comes amid the Chinese government's prediction that advanced robots will be the next big "disruptive innovation" that will spur economic growth -- similar to computers, smartphones and electric vehicles.

The South China Morning Post reported Friday that China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology plans to turn the robotics sector into "an important new engine of economic growth" by 2027.

China hopes to leverage advanced robotics to address domestic issues such as housing, a shrinking labor pool and a rapidly aging population, in addition to competing with Silicon Valley.

In the United States, the rapid advancement in robot companions may be necessary at a time when number of Americans with no close friends has quadrupled since 1990, according to the Survey Center on American Life.

Robot companions like metaDog, however, might not just raise the quality of life for humans, but also real animals. PETA estimated there are 70 million homeless dogs and cats on any given day in the United States due to owners' failure to spay and neuter their pets.