Robot Dog Swarms Could Provide the Advantage in Future Ground Conflicts

A robot dog armed with a sniper rifle was exhibited in Washington, D.C. at the recent annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army. The robot, developed by Ghost Robotics, carries a SWORD Defense Systems Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle (SPUR).  Sword Defense notes that SPUR was "specifically designed to offer precision fire from unmanned platforms such as the Ghost Robotics Vision-60 quadruped."  Chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor allows for precision fire out to 1200m; the SPUR can similarly utilize 7.62×51 NATO cartridge for ammunition availability.  The robot is equipped with day and night sensors, and carries multiple Teledyne Flir Boson 640X512 Thermal Cameras for enhanced FoV and zoom detail.  The system features "safe, chamber, clear, and fire capabilities that allows for safe and reliable deployment of the weapon system – providing the operator an ability to load and safe the weapon at a distance.”

As we reported in September, drone swarms are able to pool their sensing of the environment as they interact with it, enabling a level of AI and mission efficacy that individual machines cannot attain, https://www.the-nref.org/content/militaries-explore-collective-ai-drone-.... Enabling robot war dogs to fight in swarms would be a force multiplier, and we hope that this capability—running robot war dogs in “packs”—is under consideration by military planners and their manufacturers. Story, photos and illustrations courtesy of the U.S. Army via Fox News, Sword Defense, Theverge.com, Instagram.com, and Ghostrobotics.io.

Our thanks to Robin E. Alexander, President ATC, alexander technical[at]gmail[dot]com, for her assistance with this report.  As readers of this blog will recognize from past posts, Robin teams with David Place in the serial publishing of the UNMANNED SYSTEMS NEWS (USN). David Place distributes the USN, a free, comprehensive newsletter in PDF format every week or two, as well as serial news flashes. To be included in his distribution, simply send David a subscribe request to davidplace47[at]gmail[dot]com.