Cats, dogs and a robot in the house.

What research suggests

• Noise worries many dogs. In a survey of the owners of 13,700 dogs in Finland, noise sensitivity was the most common anxiety-related trait, at 32%, and breeds differed a lot.
• Cats hear far higher than we do. Measured in the laboratory, the domestic cat hears from about 48 Hz to 85 kHz, one of the broadest ranges among mammals. A sound too high for us to notice is not necessarily silent to a cat.
• How a drone approaches matters. A review of studies on wild animals and drones found the strongest reactions when a drone flew straight at the animals, when it was larger, and when its engine was noisier. Birds reacted more readily than other animals. These were wild animals outdoors, not pets, but flying straight at an animal is unlikely to go better in a living room.
• Dogs notice how a robot behaves. In an experiment, dogs stayed nearer a robot and looked at its head more when it had behaved socially, and followed its pointing more easily than when it acted like a machine, though less well than a person’s.

We could not find a study of cats or dogs with a drone indoors, or with a robot vacuum. If you know of one, we would like to read it.

With any robot at home

None of this comes from a study; it is what we would do with a robot vacuum, a toy or, one day, a robot that flies.

1. Meet it switched off. Let the pet sniff it on the floor, in its own time.
2. Run it first while you are home. Short runs, with a door open so the pet can leave.
3. Keep it away from the pet’s places. The bed, the bowls and the litter tray.
4. Watch, then decide. Hiding, trembling or barking that does not settle are reasons to stop. If your pet is afraid of noises in general, ask your vet before adding a new one.

How we design Alkyon for a home with pets

Alkyon’s camera model is trained to spot cats and dogs, and on test photos with one close by it found nearly all of them. We have decided to treat them as we treat people: the robot is being designed to stay at least 1 m away, measured across the floor so it does not fly over a sleeping cat either, not to come down while one is that close, and to slow to half speed when one is near. What it does when a cat walks up to it is still open. A curious paw raises the same question as a finger, which is why we are designing propeller guards a finger cannot pass.

Pets are not in our simulation yet. No cat walks under the robot and no dog jumps at it, and both move faster and lower than a person, so they are high on our list. Alkyon is a concept that flies only in simulation: how its camera learned to see cats and dogs.

Sources, read 4 November 2026: Salonen and colleagues, prevalence, comorbidity, and breed differences in canine anxiety in 13,700 Finnish pet dogs, Scientific Reports, 2020; Heffner and Heffner, hearing range of the domestic cat, Hearing Research, 1985; Mulero-Pázmány and colleagues, unmanned aircraft systems as a new source of disturbance for wildlife: a systematic review, PLOS ONE, 2017; Lakatos and colleagues, sensing sociality in dogs: what may make an interactive robot social?, Animal Cognition, 2014. General information, not veterinary advice.