Generally I’d say if you see a giant cyborg rat, you’re in trouble. But these helpful rodents actually help detect landmines.

Thanks to the wearable from kjwu / oomvelt the rats are better equipped. With an accelerometer and a camera, handlers can monitor and communicate with the rats.

The RatPack functions through the use of an accelerometer embedded in a vest that the animals wear. The accelerometer monitors the animal’s body motion. Changes in the animal’s body motion are monitored in real-time by an embedded machine learning processor that detects when the animal makes certain gestures it has previously been trained to make in response to detecting a scent or object. These gestures are communicated to a person in real time through a webpage. This process is conceptually similar to how a smartwatch can detect if a person is walking or jogging by the motion of the wrist.

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Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!