Robot dogs have been a reality for years, and although Boston Dynamics is one of the companies that has shown the most what an android of these characteristics is capable of doing, it is not the only one that wants to show off its full potential. A security company has equipped a quadruple robot dog of Ghost Robotics with a powerful weapon, and you will wish you never encountered one of them.
The robot dog design doesn't go much beyond what other companies offer. Its mechanism, of course, seems more complete, given that it needs to equip all the systems that will allow the firearm to function. The rifle is an independent module that is attached to the upper part of the body , and is developed by the company SWORD Defense Systems. Luckily, the quad robot does not have the ability to fire autonomously, but will be controlled by a human being from a distance.
The company claims that the weapon, called a special purpose unmanned rifle (or SPUR, for its acronym in English), has a range of 1,200 meters . The system also has a thermal camera and a sensor with a 30x zoom. The module also includes the “ability to load and protect the weapon from a distance”. Therefore, a robot dog of these characteristics can be a very useful element for security forces that use unmanned weapons.
Robot dogs with weapons: one more tool for the army
At the moment there are no details on the commercialization of this system. It has also not been seen in action, beyond the images that the company has shared after showing a unit of a robot dog from Ghost Robotics at the annual conference of the Association of the United States Army.
Nonetheless, robot dogs appear to be a very useful tool for the military and the police. In France, for example, they have used a Boston Dynamics robot to see how much it can help in missions. Although in some of the tasks put to the test the Robot could not fit in, in general it can be useful for remote tasks . In the United States, however, the robot patrol dog was not very well received by citizens. This caused the New York Police department to withdraw its use.
