US Marines show off rocket launcher-wearing robotic dog in demo video

It seems that effortlessly obtainable robot dogs have become an increasingly popular way of sporting and firing rocket launchers remotely. Even the US Marine Corps has realized the ability of this mixture and has simply proven off a evidence-of-concept demonstration video.

As mentioned with the aid of The Warzone, members of the Marine Air Ground Task Force Training Command's (MAGTFC) Tactical Training and Exercise Control institution (TTECG), based totally on the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms in California, tested the robot canine in September.

The demo, which also involved members of the USA Navy's Office of Naval Research (ONR), used a simple Chinese-made Unitree Go1 robotic canine (or goat, as they call it), which may be sold from Amazon for round $5,000. The agency's internet site gives an excellent inexpensive version, the Go1 Air, for $2,seven hundred, at the side of a greater advanced Go1 Pro for $three,500. For evaluation, Boston Dynamics Spot to begin with went on sale in 2020 for $74,500.

The robot quadruped is seen carrying an M72 infantry anti-armor rocket launcher inside the video, which absolutely lowers the cuteness thing. It also has a ahead-facing GoPro digicam and numerous rails that can keep more cameras, aiming lasers, and other objects of destruction.

The canine fired the weapon from a sitting role with two sandbags on either aspect of its body for safety with a steel bar in the back of it, however the robotic regarded to address the recoil from the 21mm rocket with ease.

"The bigger one, they without a doubt placed a goat head mask on it," the handler says. "And it is able to growl, bark, or even throw sirens."

That sounds mildly terrifying, and it appears one marine agreed: "Well, I wager there's a mental factor to it," he said.

"Instead of getting a Marine take care of the weapon gadget, control the safeties, we should put a far off trigger mechanism on it that allowed it to all be accomplished remotely," stated Marine Corps 1st Lt. Aaron Safadi, the officer in rate of the emerging generation integration section within TTECG. "The Marine may be at the back of cover and concealment, the weapon gadget should move ahead, and the Marine may want to manipulate the safeties from a safe area at the same time as permitting that weapon machine to get closer to its target."

This is not the first time we've seen robotic puppies weaponized. In October 2021, SWORD International, which makes semi-computerized rifles, and Ghost Robotics partnered to feature a Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle, or SPUR, to the latter's Quadrupedal Unmanned Ground Vehicle, or Q-UGV (under). The gadget bore a placing resemblance to the steel creatures visible in the War of the Worlds TV show and the murderous dog robots from the Black Mirror episode Metalhead. And the only from Battlefield 2042, of course.

At Russia's Army 2022 expo final summer, the M-81 turned into on show, a canine-like quadrupedal robotic wearing an RPG-26 on its lower back and dressed in a ninja-yoroi. The robotic become probably a UnitreeYushuTechnologyDog, to be had from Chinese marketplace Alibaba for as low as $2,seven hundred.

Video of the M-eighty one robot-canine armed with an RPG-26 at the Army 2022 defense expo. Https://t.Co/rUnwoCMoyS p.C.Twitter.Com/BEDjnwstN0

– Rob Lee (@RALee85) August 15, 2022

Boston Dynamics changed into one among several robotics agencies to sign an open letter closing October asking humans no longer to weaponize their robots. Spot is used within the militia, although its reason is scouting and cargo carriage.