“These dogs will provide an additional set of eyes and ears as we process large amounts of data in strategic locations at Tyndall Air Force Base,” Maj. Jordan Criss, commander of the 325th Security Forces Squadron, he said systems during initial testing in behind schedule 2020. “These will be a huge boost to our defenders and enable flexibility in the deployment and response of our staff.”
Meanwhile, robot dogs have become an increasingly common piece of equipment throughout the U.S. military, beyond patrolling sensitive installations. In July 2023, Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota introduced robot dogs that will enable airmen to respond to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats “without compromising the safety of themselves or others.” In August, Patrick Space Force Base, Florida added robot dogs to rotate security around the perimeter for “additional detection and warning capabilities.” The same month, the Philadelphia Division Naval Surface Warfare Center announced hiring robot dogs to “build 3D ship models aboard the Philadelphia Navy Yard’s ‘standstill’ fleet of decommissioned ships,” while the Coast Guard exposed four-legged “droid” dogs in Hawaii to “fight weapons of mass destruction.” Finally, in November, Airmen at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana debuted robot dogs for removing explosive ammunition.
Despite these practical non-combat applications, some robotics companies have become interested in weapons. In October 2021, Ghost Robotics He showed up a so-called “Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle” (SPUR), a quadrupedal robot with a 6.5 mm Creedmoor assault rifle developed by SWORD International mounted on its back during the annual military weapons exhibition in Washington, D.C., in the first public example of a robot dog armed with firearm. The following year, a video of a robot dog equipped with a PP-19 Vityaz submachine gun by Russian entrepreneur Alexander Atamov quickly gained popularity on YouTube and Twitter. By 2023, the American company will debut a robot dog flamethrower strapped to his backalthough not exclusively for military purposes (it is no longer fielded for US troops, it uses flamethrowers against enemy combatants is not technically prohibited). Like the Predator drone, you can’t build a recent robot unless someone hits it with a weapon.
Cry Havoc
Public perception of armed robot dogs is overwhelmingly defined by anxiety mixed with discomfort, especially given the development of autonomous or semi-autonomous weapon systems that can independently track and identify targets. Even beyond conventional calling Terminator-inspired by techno-fear, robot dogs appear amazing memorable With dangerous, mechanized fangs Black mirror.
Part of the creep factor comes from the “uncanny valley,” Singer says, referring to a psychological phenomenon in which robots that look and act almost natural, but not quite natural, eventually unnerve their human observers. “In terms of engineering, these robots take their inspiration from nature, because real dogs have been evolved through evolution to be really good in the field,” says Singer. “As a result, we superimpose our beliefs about these types of creatures onto ‘bio-inspired’ robots, and the more something behaves as realistic but not similar, the more we react with fear or disgust.”