Link to newsround

Why might you spot this robot dog in the Forest of Dean?

A red robot dog with four metal legs walks through a forest Reuters

It might not be on a lead, but this dog is very well behaved

On a walk through a forest, you might spot lots of trees, flowers and even animals along the way.

But what would you do if you saw a robot dog?

Many people like to walk their dogs in the forest, but this one is quite different.

It's part of a special project that's using new tech to help manage and protect forests, and is being tested in woodlands around the world - including the Forest of Dean, an historic forest in Gloucestershire, England.

More amazing inventions:

A red robot dog with four metal legs walks through a forest Reuters

The cyborg canine has been specially developed to walk in the forested terrain

The DigiForest project is funded by the European Union and is all about helping forestry become more sustainable, and its team includes researchers from the Oxford Robotics Institute.

As well as the UK, the robot dogs have been sent to forests in Finland and Switzerland, where they walk through leaves and uneven ground to create 3D maps of the area.

These maps can then be studied to work out what needs to be done to help the forest thrive.

For example, if trees need to be felled, the map made by the robot dog could help foresters be more careful about which trees to cut down in a way that protects the overall health of the natural world.

A digital map showing terrain and trees in faded green, with red lines, and a small icon of a robot's pathUniversity of Oxford

The robot dog has its own camera, which you can see in the top right here, and makes digital maps to help foresters

The robot dogs have the same technology as driverless cars and measure the distance between trees with lasers, building up a 3D image of the forest.

It's quite an expensive bit of kit, and Maurice Fallon, Professor of Robotics at the University of Oxford and the research lead on DigiForest, says there are challenges to making it more widely available.

Maurice says that the robot is "developed to be IP rated, which means it's waterproof" and that they're constantly improving its "ability to walk so that it's able to be more rugged, and doesn't fall over".

So, if you go down to the woods today, will you be sure of a big surprise?

Well, maybe not today, but in the future, you might see a robot dog on its walkies!