In a joint military exercise with Cambodia, the Chinese Army debuted its newest recruit this week, a gun-toting robot dog, demonstrating the military’s technological foray into replacing humans with machines in combat situations.
China Unveils Rifle Firing Robot Dog
In a joint military exercise with Cambodia, the Chinese Army debuted its newest recruit this week, a gun-toting robot dog, demonstrating the military’s technological foray into replacing humans with machines in combat situations. Two versions of the robot-dog were showcased — one that can fire at the enemy and a lighter dog that can be used in identifying targets. Both have a 4D wide-angle perception system, and just like real-life canines, can move forward and backward, jump, and lie down.
The dog ready for direct combat has an assault rifle attached to its top and weighs 50 kg. The other 15 kg robot is designed to replace human recruits in reconnaissance missions and can identify the enemy by providing real-time transmission of footage to military posts.
Ongoing China-Cambodia “Golden Dragon 2024” joint military exercise involves the participation of 1,315 Cambodian military personnel and 760 Chinese soldiers. The Golden Dragon exercises have been held on a regular basis since 2016, around the same time that Cambodia canceled similar exercises with the United States known as Angkor Sentinel. Earlier, in November 2023, in a joint exercise held in China, involving the Chinese, Cambodian, Lao, Malaysian, Thai and Vietnamese militaries, rifle-armed robotic canines were shown.
The US has used robot dogs in the past. A Boston Dynamics robot dog was used by Massachusetts State Police in a hostage situation. The robot dog ended up taking the bullets which otherwise could have fatally wounded a human being.
