A robot dog carrying a weapon is no longer a novelty, but the one that has just been tested by American forces in the Middle East has a new function. The robot, a Ghost Robotics Vision 60, or Q-UGV, porteporte a miniturret equipped with an AR-15 (M-16) assault rifle. This configuration allows it to be used as an anti-drone defense system. An artificial intelligence (AI) is at work to exploit the Lone Wolf electro-optical targeting system which equips the turret. Nothing says if the machine can decide to automatically shoot down an aerial threat or if an operator must authorize it to “squeeze the trigger”.
This type of robot could be used to fill “holes” in the racket of an air defense system when a drone has not been detected early enough and it approaches dangerously the installations to be protected. This test, conducted at Red Sands Integrated Experimentation Center in Saudi Arabia, was carried out in mid-September. It was part of a more general exercise called Hard Kill which included 15 other anti-drone platforms.
A drone-killing robot dog?
If this is its objective, the army has not specified whether the machine was specifically used to shoot down drones during the exercise, nor what type of drone. We assume that these are small aéronefsaéronefs slow enough that they can be destroyed by an automatic weapon. On the other hand, she specified that the robot’s weapon had engaged several static targets on the ground. No further details were provided. Using an assault rifle can be useful if the AI is able to react and acquire the target quickly. But the reality on the ground, particularly in Ukraine, shows that one of the best weapons for neutralizing a drone at very low altitude remains buckshot. The volley of leadlead will destroy the propellers of a mini-drone to bring it down.
This is not the first time that robots-dogsdogs are equipped with weapons. Numerous experiments have already taken place to verify their potential for military use. They were thus equipped with assault rifles, rocket launchers and even flamethrowers. The Chinese army has also published several videos showing this type of armed robot carrying out reconnaissance approaches in front of ground troops.
It remains to be seen whether such a use could become operational given the fragility of these robot dogs. A single shot of feufeu is likely to destroy them. For the moment, if these uses are essentially demonstrative, these robots are also used militarily for simple area surveillance missions and in mine clearance operations.
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