A display performance by the precise dogs of battle, a crew of machine dogs with automatic rifle mounted on their flanks, was included in China’s largest military drills actually with Cambodia on Thursday.
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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 study from a Chinese study team was published in February that demonstrated that robots with 7.62mm guns firing 750 rounds per minute could shoot rifles with nice accuracy at ranges up to 100 meters, roughly equivalent to or higher than human riflemen’s.
If the kinks in navigating deep and complicated city environments may be worked out, the team believed that legged platforms could become game-changing weapons for urban war. Instead of making the weapon bolts custom to give the robot better reliability and resistance, the report suggested American designers were making a mistake by just strapping guns to their defense robodog check 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 run for roughly four hours while carrying a 20kg load”, the SCMP noted.
Although China is slowly catching up and its manufacturing advantages make it possible to deliver field-ready units at much lower prices than American quadriped platforms, the latter may be a little more sophisticated at the moment. 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 thanked the Chinese for “providing new equipment and assisting in military facilities.“
The Ream naval base, which the United States fears could become a new strategic naval outpost for China, was where two of the warships dispatched by China were docked.
The Cambodians responded to these concerns by insisting that their country’s constitution forbids the deployment of foreign military forces on their soil, and that the Chinese ships were only “testing” the Ream new pier that China helped to build.
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.”
