Ukrainian startup founders have created a collar-communicator for cats, which uses artificial intelligence to translate animal sounds into a human-understandable format. The developer and CTO of the startup Andrii Mykhailiv told dev.ua how he came up with idea and when it will be possible to purchase the gadget.
About the developer
Andrii Mykhailiv has 3 years of experience as a .Net developer. He works and studies for a postgraduate degree at the Department of Artificial Intelligence Systems, the Institute of Computer Science and Information Technologies, Lviv Polytechnic National University. Previously, he studied for a bachelor’s degree, majoring in Software Engineering, and defended his diploma work on the topic «Collar with a microphone for determining the state of a cat by voice signal». Then there was the master’s degree program Systems of Artificial Intelligence, and the topic of his diploma work was «Determining the state of a cat by voice signal».
Now, in addition to work and study, Andrii is working on a dissertation «Information technology for determining the physiological state of an animal by sound signals based on deep learning methods».
Where did the idea come from?
The idea of creating a collar, which will be used to communicate with cats, came to Andrii back in 2020, when he was writing his master’s thesis. Then the developer realized that the idea seems profitable, and began to analyze research, competitors and user interest in such a product.
«I have four cats at home in the village, and I have been watching them all my life. However, sometimes I cannot understand whether the cats are all right, because it is impossible to be sure if you understand animals», recalls Andrii.
What is Cotia?
Cotia is a simple cat-to-owner communicator that will translate the animal’s sounds into human-understandable format.
It looks like a comfortable collar, and the device collects sound data from a pet. Then the system analyzes the sound with the help of AI and gives the result. The process resembles the work of a fitness bracelet. Such a device, in addition to improving the interaction with the cat, can also analyze long-term data, which will allow making recommendations when it is necessary to take better care of the animal.
«Actually, we develop the design of the accessory so that it is comfortable for the animal, and we test it on our cats», says Andrii.
Who’s on the team?
In total, the startup team consists of five people, and they have also hired several freelance students to help with specific tasks. The Cotia team is young, among the co-founders are three third-year bachelor’s students majoring in Artificial Intelligence Systems at Lviv Polytechnic National University – Sofiia, Ira and Maksym, and Oleh – a first-year student majoring in Computer Science at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology (PJATK).
«In general, we cover our minimum device development needs, but if there are interested data miners and data analysts, we would not mind contacting them», says Andrii.
For more details when the Cotia will be developed, about financial issues and plans for the future, visit the dev.ua website.