As the saying goes, no one can stop a gangster with martial arts. This saying may also have some rationality in the field of robot development. Robot dogs that can walk on four legs and run under load have become a hot spot in the development of robotics companies at home and abroad, and robotic fish that can swim in water are also the focus of domestic and foreign robotics manufacturers. But the ability of a robot dog to swim is an eye-catching "skill package", especially what does a company that provides services to the US military want to develop such an amphibious robot dog?

The U.S. "Power" website "War Zone" channel reported on the 13th with the title "Military Robot Dogs Can Swim" that the "Quadruped Unmanned Ground Vehicle" (Q-UGV) developed by the "Ghost Robotics" company The Vision 60 robotic dog is now a fully amphibious unmanned vehicle.

Warzone says the Vision 60 robot dog is an excellent modular platform that can easily adapt to a variety of roles, including an armed scout robot dog equipped with a rifle. Swimming skills are now added to the Vision 60's "Skill Pack" thanks to the Onyx Industries "Tail" kit with a waterjet propulsion system.

According to previous news from the U.S. Air Force, the Vision 60 robot dog has been evaluated at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. The U.S. military expects the Vision 60 to assist the U.S. military in completing some military dog missions, thereby effectively reducing military dog casualties.

Vision 60 is equipped with integrated high-resolution optical, thermal imaging and infrared sensors, which can effectively detect external targets. The four-legged maximum walking speed can reach 2.3 meters per second, and it can also perform tasks across a variety of terrain environments; Compared with crawler-type unmanned vehicles, robot dogs have relatively simple components, are more durable and flexible, and outperform traditional unmanned vehicles in some areas.

In addition, Vision 60 can input a designated patrol route in advance, and the operator can use the head-mounted virtual reality device to use the sensors on the robot dog from a distance to effectively view the search area. At the same time, one person can also operate multiple robot dogs.

But these previous introductions to the performance of this land-based military robot dog were not related to its latest underwater skills. According to the introduction of the developer, this is "the first fully amphibious quadruped unmanned ground vehicle on the market", "with the addition of the Nautical Autonomous Unmanned Tail (NAUT), which allows the robot dog to help in the water"...

However, the underwater performance of the NAUT-equipped Vision 60, such as its swimming speed or underwater endurance, is not known from the demo video footage and presentation. Warzone has contacted Ghost Robotics and Onyx Industries for more information.

"Battery life is a key issue. Ultimately, we're going to give it multiple capabilities so that it can swim," Ghost Robotics founder, who tragically passed away in March, told The War Zone in 2020 about the future use of Vision in coastal environments 60 robot dogs possible. "We've filed some cool patents."

As you can see from the video footage, the NAUT-equipped Vision 60 doesn't appear to be using its four legs in any way in the water, relying solely on the rear-mounted articulating water jets for propulsion and steering.

The War Zone believes that in any case, the amphibious capabilities provided by NAUT open up multiple possibilities for using the Vision 60 robotic dog to support military operations, law enforcement activities, and more.

Although, as of now, the U.S. military and U.S. companies have not released any military tasks that the swimming robot dog will accomplish in the future. The Vision 60 has previously demonstrated the ability to walk in shallow water, and whatever tasks they take on in the future, the ability to cross deeper water obstacles will only increase the flexibility to complete the task.

If the development of this unmanned equipment is put aside and the line of sight is put into a wider field of vision, it is not difficult to find that the US military has recently invested a lot in unmanned equipment, especially amphibious unmanned equipment. For example, according to a report on the Hong Kong Asia Times website on June 10, the new MK11 "SEAL" delivery boat of the U.S. Navy "SEAL" commando has recently been publicly unveiled, and this submarine may be deployed in any conflict area in the South China Sea in the future.

The US "Defense News" website reported on the 14th that the US shipbuilding giant Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) announced that it will develop an unmanned launch and recovery system for US amphibious ships.

HII combined its expertise in building unmanned ships to create a launch and recovery system that enables the U.S. Navy's amphibious fleet to function as an unmanned mothership, the report said.

U.S. Marine Corps Commander General David Berger has said at several meetings in recent months that as unmanned technology matures, amphibious ships will become more lethal. He said an adversary would not be able to guess what weapons and platforms amphibious ships carry inside.

If you put these clues together, you will find that these US military-related developments are all related to amphibious operations. There are both manned and unmanned equipment. If the brain hole is enlarged, the possibility of various arrangements and combinations of these systems in the future cannot be ruled out: the combination between manned and unmanned underwater vehicles; launch and recovery systems It can not only launch and recover manned underwater equipment, but also launch and recover unmanned underwater equipment; at the same time, the robot dog that can swim can also be matched with the American "SEAL" commando; the robot dog can even be placed in the In the unmanned underwater vehicle, when the unmanned underwater vehicle reaches the near-shore position, the robot dog can be released from it, and the robot dog can swim or wade through the shoal area by itself, and then return to the inside of the unmanned underwater vehicle after completing the shore task.

And what Lao Liu imagined is not nonsense. In fact, the U.S. military is conducting relevant tests whether it is the "Sea Hunter" or the "Ghost Fleet" project.