A crew of machine dogs with automatic rifle mounted on their backs gave one of China’s largest military drills actually against Cambodia on Thursday, which included a display performance by the “dogs of battle.”
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Both the People’s Liberation Army ( PLA ) of China and the U. S. military have experimented with militarizing the increasingly common “robodog” design. The South China Morning Post (SCMP ) reported in March that the PLA saw a chance to advance its research into killer robots because American designers seemed more drawn to using the robots for practical tasks on the front lines, like carrying supplies.
A Chinese study team released a study in February that demonstrated that robodogs with 7.62mm weapons firing 750 rounds per minute could reach nice accuracy at ranges up to 100 meters, which is comparable to or exceed the average reliability of human conscripts.
If the difficulties of navigating deep and puzzling city environments may be resolved, the team believed that quadrupled platforms could turn into game-changing weapons for urban warfare. Instead of making the crossbow bolts custom-made to improve the robot’s accuracy and collect shrink, the report suggested National designers were making a mistake by simply attaching weapons to their military robodog test platforms. Chinese researchers predicted that they could create a robot system that accounted for all the complexity of movement, recoil, and visibility on the battlefield using artificial intelligence ( AI ) to design a robot system.
” Chinese mechanical dogs can then manage stairs, do athletic feats such as backflips, travel garbage dumps or tropical rainforests, and maintain a steady work for roughly four hours while carrying a 20kg load”, the SCMP noted.
National quadriped programs appear to be a little more complex for the time being, but China is quickly catching up and its production advantages allow it to provide field-ready units at much lower prices than U.S. companies. The industry- leading Boston Dynamics” Spot” robodog costs at least$ 70, 000 per unit, while China’s model costs$ 3, 000.
The robodog units China brought to Cambodia reportedly demonstrated only their walking capabilities, rather than their marksmanship. In addition to the robots, China sent about 760 military personnel to the drills in the central Kampong Chhnang province, plus 69 armored vehicles and tanks, and three warships for coastal maneuvers.
The 15- day” Golden Dragon” exercise formally kicked off on Thursday, with the costs to be covered by China. According to the Associated Press, the Cambodian military also thanked the Chinese for “providing new equipment and assisting in the upgrading of military facilities.“
The Ream naval base, which the United States fears could become a new strategic naval outpost for China, served two of the warships it sent by force.
The Cambodians responded to these questions by insisting that their constitution forbids the deployment of foreign military forces on their soil, and that the Chinese ships were merely “testing” the new pier that China helped to construct at Ream.
Cambodia’s denials were disingenuous, according to military analysts, and China will almost certainly establish a permanent military presence at the Ream base, according to Voice of America News (VOA ) on Thursday.
According to University of New South Wales professor emeritus Carlyle Thayer,” This would give China a new forward operating base from which to control the waters off Vietnam’s southern coast and the Gulf of Thailand.”
The U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh responded to the Golden Dragon exercise with a light sigh of relief, restating its support for Cambodia’s sovereignty and urging it to choose a “diversity of military partners and transparency on activities that might have an impact on the region.”
