China also introduced a robot dog with a machine gun on its back

China showed off remote-controlled robot dogs capable of firing machine guns in military exercises with Cambodia earlier this month. According to a video released by state broadcaster CCTV, these battery-powered “robotdogs” can operate for 2 to 4 hours. They have the ability to move forward and backward, lie down and jump.

In addition, robot dogs are able to plan routes, approach targets and avoid obstacles. According to CCTV, one of the robots shown in the video was equipped with a rifle to shoot at targets. Chinese soldier Chen Wei said robot dogs “will serve as a new participant in urban combat operations” and can replace humans in the tasks of identifying and defeating targets.

The robot dogs may have been supplied by Chinese manufacturer Unitree, whose robots are listed on the company’s website for between $2,800 and $100,000.

The US Marine Corps Special Operations Command (MARSOC) is already implementing armed robotic rifles, so-called dog robots, equipped with four-legged Vision 60 unmanned ground vehicles (Q-UGVs). These systems, developed by Ghost Robotics from Philadelphia, have been on the US Department of Defense’s test field for a long time.