Unmanned Combat Ground Vehicle

no_name said:

I'm not implying it's not a good shoot, it's gonna be shoot and scoot. Or shoot and hide. And it can employ wolfpack strategy.

LiDAR can also be hooked into a intel network, mapping out the environment in real time as the dogs travel.
Then you'll have the environment map as well as possible enemy locations.

Also easier to see where you are being shot at from the ground than the air.
Pretty sure if it can trace your bullets it can trace enemy bullets, you'll know their location. Let the dog to fire back to where the bullet paths originated.

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dingyibvs said:

You're missing the biggest advantage of ground travel vs air travel--energy efficiency. A Mavic 3 can fly for 30-40 mins carrying just the on board camera. It has a weight of 900 grams and MTOW of 1100 grams, so a weight carrying capacity of 200 grams. A single M67 grenade weighs 400 grams.

This robot dog can probably run for a couple hours carrying multiple kilograms of arms and ordnance.

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Andy1974 said:

Mmmm, I’m not sure we are looking at this in the right way.

If they are testing the robot dog with a gun mounted then we can speculate about how good a shot that dog would be. Considering it’s huge (for a gun) LiDAR and Chinas prowess in such things, I would suggest that it is a very good shot indeed.

So, if the LiDAR can spot you then the bullets can hit you. I doubt it would miss often.

The dog is probably pretty fast too. And that LiDAR can see in the dark, and it may even be able to trace the bullets in flight.

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tankphobia said:

If they're putting them in pop-mil tv shows, it's at best just for PR more than for actual operational use, it's all well and good that they are exploring all the different types of use for it, but I don't see a robot dog EVER being good for weaponized use, a single shot from the gun will destroy any semblance of accuracy due to the non-solid connection to the ground. Tracked and armed UGV could provide a stabilized firing platform, but they can't navigate rough terrain so it would be moot in a urban environment. I have worked in this space before and anything involving a LiDAR is just so expensive that having it as a simple armed drone is a terrible use of the technology. A much better use would be for example CBRN monitoring.

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Andy1974 said:

Sorry to say your notion in how much LiDAR costs is outdated, not only is it cheap enough to mount 6 of them in a cheap car and process all that data on a single chip, but some can also spot details as small as 1mm on the horizon.

I am sure the designers thought about recoil when programming the dog, true the dog can probably get less traction than a soldier, but it has algorithms and parts that are constantly being updated to mitigate.

Tracked and wheeled UGVs are part of the squad too, they can cover outside buildings, ground floors and elevators while the dogs go up the stairs and the drones cover the windows and roofs; all armed with guns, flash bangs, grenades, rockets and lasers.

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tankphobia said:

My notion is not outdated, it's just that what you are thinking of is nowhere near the levels used in UGVs like robotic dogs.

What you're proposing requires more than cheap 2-D single line Lidars, requiring vertical movement in the laser emitter/receiver to create 3D imagery, it's a far cry from the relatively simple ones used in electric Cars due to the different operational environment which only requires obstacle detection. There's differences between hobbyist grade and military grade also, something similar (even just as simple) will cost $500+ if expected to last in rugged environments. It's not just the Lidars that is expensive in a robot dog like UGV, you also need a lot of computing due to the amount of data and expensive actuators due to the complex movements it needs to perform.

Like it's not doing anything that a equivalent flying drone can't do for much cheaper, any damage to the sensor system from battle will basically cost more to replace than a suicide UAV anyway so a dog like UGV is extremely difficult to justify in a actual combat situation. Tracked UGVs are fine as fire support/logistics, but having a expensive, low endurance and low survivability armed UGV which is not as flexible as infantry men is questionable to say the least.

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Aniah said:

These are prototypes, technology will get cheaper and more efficient as time continues. It seems the PLA sees this as being useful in the future and are continuously developing it. What you've said might be true now but not in maybe a decade or more.

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tankphobia said:

I think should look at it this way, if you're not sending soldiers in and you can confirm that there's hostiles inside, you can just level the building with air power instead of wasting resources and time clearing it using drones. If whatever is inside is important, you would just send infantry in instead since time is off the essence and you can't risk the enemy destroying whatever's inside before drones can clear it. To develop a platform for a purpose, there needs to be a problem first, I can't exactly see the problem that a robotic dog would solve, what role will it fulfill BETTER than what's currently there? (i.e infantry man equipped for close combat)

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Andy1974 said:

Uhh, the Geneva Convention? Your tactics amount to war crimes.

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tankphobia said:

The Geneva conventions is not worth the paper its written on considering recent events. In a might makes right world It only matters who wins. (Eg battle of Fallujah, any day you can pick in the last 4+ months.) Troop preservation pretty much trumps all other concerns in modern urban warfare, you give warning, then level the building.

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