In a shocking display of how much technology has advanced in China, a Chinese military contractor decided to let the world in on their creation. They released a video showing a robot shaped like a dog with artillery being dropped off by a drone.
Kestrel Defense Blood Wing, a social media account belonging to a private Chinese defense contractor, released the video on a popular Chinese social platform called Weibo on October 3.
The video shows a drone come up to the rooftop of a building, hover over the building, and then drop off a robot. The robot looks like it has an automatic gun on its back. The drone then flies away, and after a few seconds, in true robot fashion, the robot dog gets up, stands on four legs, and then starts to walk around the rooftop as if searching and scanning for targets.
According to reports, the gun on the robot dog’s back could be a Chinese QBB-97, a light machine gun. The gun can fire up to 650 rounds of ammunition per minute and has an effective range of about 400 meters.
Kestrel Defense Wing posted the video along with a description, which according to Google translate says that attackers can use the weapon to launch a surprise attack quite easily.
The post says that war dogs are descending from the sky, and drones can deliver armed robot dogs or even use them for air assault. It says that the combat war dogs delivered by drones will be very useful to the military as they can be directly dropped off into enemy lines and launch a surprise attack.
Chinese robot technology and other similar weapons have been developed to be operated and controlled by humans. Many military analysts think that robots designed to operate without human control could be developed soon and used by the military on battlefields.
Kestrel has shown off their robot dog technology before. A few months ago, they tried a robot dog that could carry a munitions launcher.
China is just one country that has taken technological advancements to the next level in its military. In 2021, an American robotics company, Ghost Robotics, showed off one of its gun-carrying robots in a showcase. The United States has also figured out how to arm robot dogs.
The New York Police Department has also previously used robotic dogs but without guns attached to them. They used the robot dogs in April 2021, but the program was terminated a month later, in May 2021, following criticism and backlash from the public.
China has, however, not shied away from using robot technology and a recent robot expo in the country showed robot dogs dancing. One was also spotted on the streets of Shanghai during the COVID-19 lockdown earlier this year, and a restriction announcement was made.
