Robot dogs now have sniper rifles

A robot dog armed with a sniper firearm was unveiled this week successful Washington, D.C. astatine the yearly gathering of the Association of the United States Army.

The robot, developed by Ghost Robotics, carries a SWORD Defense Systems Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle (SPUR).

“Latest lethality 6.5 #creedmoor sniper payload from @SWORDINT. Check retired the latest spouse payloads @AUSAorg Wash DC. Keeping US and allied #sof #warfighter equipped with the latest innovations,” Ghost Robotics tweeted Monday, alongside a photograph of the “dog.” 

In a Thursday Instagram post, SWORD International called the robot “Warfighters champion friend.”

On the SWORD International website, the institution explains that the SPUR was “specifically designed to connection precision occurrence from unmanned platforms specified arsenic the Ghost Robotics Vision-60 quadruped.”

The robots don’t person immoderate AI exertion and indispensable beryllium controlled by a quality relation .Ghost Robotics

“Featuring safe, chamber, wide and occurrence capabilities that allows for harmless and reliable deployment of the limb strategy – providing the relation an quality to load and harmless the limb astatine a distance. These features besides supply the relation the quality to wide malfunctions and safely unload the level anterior to recovery. Chambered successful 6.5 Creedmoor allows for precision occurrence retired to 1200m, the SPUR tin likewise utilize 7.62×51 NATO cartridge for ammunition availability. Due to its highly susceptible sensors the SPUR tin run successful a magnitude of conditions, some time and night,” SWORD International wrote. 

SPUR, it said, is the “future of unmanned limb systems.” 

According to New Scientist, the robot is portion of Ghost Robotics’ Vision series of legged robots. 

In May, the US Air Force said it was investigating an unarmed mentation of the dogs astatine Florida’s Tyndall Air Force Base.

“People spot these robots retired walking astir and they deliberation this is simply a fieldable capability, but determination is inactive a batch of development, investigating and valuation that inactive needs to beryllium done,” Johanna Lewis, Special Programs Division programme manager, said successful a release detailing the initiative. “Having them conscionable locomotion astir is not what we’re after. We privation them to patrol the basal utilizing their integrated sensors to supply our forces successful the basal information operations halfway with useful, mission-critical data.”

The Pennsylvania-based Ghost Robotics has been gathering the four-legged Q-UGV (Quadrupedal Unmanned Ground Vehicles) robots since 2015.

While immoderate whitethorn interest astir a robot done with a lethal sniper firearm that Popular Science reports has been adopted by Homeland Security and Special Operations snipers, Ghost Robotics CEO Jiren Parikh told New Scientist connected Thursday that the limb is “fully controlled by a distant operator.” 

“There is simply a quality controlling the weapon, determination is nary autonomy oregon AI,” helium assured. 

It was not instantly wide whether the quadrupedal robots and rifles are being sold, but Parikh noted that the robot had been chosen for its quality to maneuver implicit tricky terrain arsenic its operators remains retired of harm’s way.

While absorption to the equipped dogs has been mixed, Pentagon argumentation states that each robotic weapons should beryllium nether the power of a quality operator. 

The Pennsylvania-based robotics institution has been gathering the canine robots since 2015. Ghost Robotics

That whitethorn supply a small comfortableness to those shocked by these robots.

The NYPD (New York Police Department) had to return the Boston Dynamics-made “Digidog” that became the taxable of a City Council subpoena aft images of it went viral.