Marines test dog robots

 War Zone:

The U.S. Marine Corps recently tested a robot dog toting a training version of the M72 infantry anti-armor rocket launcher. This is the latest example of growing interest in the U.S. and foreign militaries forces, especially the Chinese and Russian armed forces, in the idea of arming four-legged uncrewed ground systems. In fact, the Marine design looks to be based on a similar, if not identical Chinese-made commercial-of-the-shelf quadrupedal robot that has emerged in anti-armor rocket launcher and submachine gun-armed configurations in Russia in the past.

Members of the Marine Air Ground Task Force Training Command's (MAGTFC) Tactical Training and Exercise Control group (TTECG), based at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms in California, tested the robot dog back in September. Members of the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research (ONR) were also involved in what was described as a proof-of-concept demonstration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdyIB_bLeKA

Specific details about the Marine Corps' robot dog and its capabilities are limited. The War Zone has reached out to the Marine Corps for more information.

However, pictures and videos that the Marine Corps has released, seen earlier in this story, show that the underlying quadrupedal robot is a Chinese-made Unitree Go1, which is readily available for purchase online, including through Amazon. Unitree's website offers the baseline Go1 Air for $2,700 and the Go1 Pro, which it says has more capable sensors that it uses for general movement and object recognition, for $3,500.

The video below gives a general sense of the kind of capabilities the commercially-available Go1 offers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8M3RDbxCX4

It's interesting to note that the Marines refer to the design tested last month as a "robotic goat" rather than the far more common robot dog description. It's unclear why the Marines chose this term instead. One possibility might be that it is in some way related to the Go1's name.

The weapon system on the robot dog's back consists of a mount designed to hold and fire an M72-series rocket launcher, as well as a forward-facing GoPro camera offset on the right side. There are rails installed at various points that could be used to mount additional cameras, aiming lasers, and other accessories.
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Joe Biden might describe it as a "dog face pony Marine."  Or, a "goat face" robot.  It is an example of how rotics are impacting military operations.