Flo Control

Never doubt that for any obscure problem there is someone out there with the unique expertise (and enough time!) to deal with it. Now, thanks to the internet, they can tell us all about it.

Meet Flo:

[Flo] has a habit of catching various animals, dragging them inside through the cat door, and letting them loose so they can be chased for hours. Very cruel. To put an end to this we have built a computer-controlled device that visually determines if Flo is carrying anything in her mouth when she enters, and if she does, it simply does not let her in.

Brilliant! The site gives an interesting account of how they put image-recognition algorithms to use to keep Flo's prey outside. They even have a real-time record of all the critter encounters the device has registered and how it responded. It even keeps out curious skunks too!