Sword Defense Systems has introduced a precision rifle for robot dogs, capable of hitting targets 1.2 km away. The episode titled “Metalhead” from the popular Netflix sci-fi series Black Mirror, come true.
Unsurprisingly, the system, called the Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle, or SPUR, has generated controversy on social media.
The SPUR rifle fits on the back of a robot dog; in this case, the Quadruped Vision-60 from Ghost Robotics. It weighs 7.7 kg and features a Teledyne FLIR Boson thermal camera with a 30X optical zoom, capable of identifying targets during the day or night.
In other words, this robot dog can detect us long before we see it. Given its effective range of 1,200 meters, enemy combatants will likely never see it coming, especially at night.
On Instagram, SWORD International stated that their involvement with SPUR is “to keep their [special ops] teams armed with the latest innovation in lethality.”
The robot, developed by Ghost Robotics of Philadelphia, is a new take on their Vision series of legged robots. The US Air Force is currently testing a decommissioned version of these robots for use as perimeter security at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. This is the armed version.
Robotic dogs are incredibly agile, they can traverse rough terrain that can be difficult for wheeled machines, and they can operate with a high degree of autonomy.
It is a high-precision killing machine that could easily be linked to artificial intelligence capabilities already used on the battlefield with war drones and other state-of-the-art military equipment.
