As for targeting, the SPUR module appears to have its own sighting system on top. In past testing the U.S. Air Force has conducted using unarmed Q-UGVs, operators have utilized the Android Team Awareness Kit (ATAK), an app that can be installed on tablet-like devices, to interact with these unmanned systems and view the feeds from their onboard video cameras. It seems likely that ATAK or a similar piece of software could be used to enable a human to aim at targets and engage with them with the robot’s 6.5mm rifle. The Air Force has also discussed potentially operating Q-UGVs remotely from centralized command facilities via virtual reality headsets.
SPUR could also have some degree of additional autonomy, now or in the future, potentially employing artificial intelligence-driven capabilities to at least detect and “lock on” to potential threats, even if an operator ultimately has to give the approval to start shooting. Sighting systems for small arms that offer these kinds of capabilities are available on the open market now.
Regardless, giving the Q-UGV a weapon of its own offers a way for it to immediately prosecute any targets it might come across, if desired. This could be especially valuable given the idea that these “robot dogs,” just like their real counterparts, will be able to get into tight spaces that present significant risks for their human “handlers,” or just be hard for a person to access all. A 6.5mm Creedmoor gun would give it the option of engaging threats at more extended ranges, as well. This could be highly advantageous for perimeter security tasks, which is already one of its key missions, at least in expeditionary scenarios, as well as for scouting and urban warfare military operations.
“These dogs will be an extra set of eyes and ears while computing large amounts of data at strategic locations throughout Tyndall Air Force Base,” Air Force Major Jordan Criss, the head of the 325th Security Forces Squadron, said in a statement after a test involving the Q-UGVs last year. “They will be a huge enhancement for our defenders and allow flexibility in the posting and response of our personnel.”
The option now of arming the Q-UGVs adds a new tier of capability to these unmanned systems that could increase their flexibility when employed in various roles. At the same time, the idea of arming quadrupedal unmanned systems, which already prompt very different kinds of reactions compared to more traditional unmanned ground vehicles, may sit unfavorably with some. Those types of responses may well increase just as Ghost Robotics’ product line, including unarmed types, becomes increasingly more autonomous.
At the same time, small armed unmanned ground systems are hardly new, and the military utility of adding weapon systems to quadrupedal designs is obvious.
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