Russian Army Expo Shows Off Robot Dog Carrying Rocket Launcher

At a military convention in Russia, a local company is showing off a robot dog that’s carrying a rocket launcher. 

Russian news agency RIA Novosti today filmed(Opens in a new window) the four-legged bot at the Army 2022 convention, which is taking place near Moscow and sponsored by the country’s Ministry of Defense. 

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The robot was recorded trotting along on the convention floor while wielding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher on its back. The robot is also capable of crouching on the floor, making it harder to spot, while it presumably waits to fire off a rocket.  

It remains unclear if the robot will ever be used on the field when Russia is locked in a war with Ukraine, and already using air-based drones at least for recon and targeting purposes. But according to RIA Novosti, the bot is dubbed the M-81 system and comes from a Russian engineering company called “Intellect Machine.” The developers say the robot dog is being designed to both transport weapons and ammunition and fire them during combat missions. 

Interestingly, the company decided to cover the robot dog in a ninja-like outfit. This might have been done to mask the true origin of the machine, which appears to come from a Chinese company called Unitree. The Go1 robot dog from Unitree is currently up for sale(Opens in a new window) for $2,700 and has been described as a knock-off version of Boston Dynamics’s own four-legged robots.

(Credit: RIA Novosti)

Unitree Go1
(Credit: Unitree)

It’s not the first time someone has decided to place a weapon on a Go1 robot. Earlier this year, another person in Russia decided to strap a machine gun to a Go1 and film it firing off the gun. The video then went viral on social media last month while demonstrating the (terrifying) military potential for autonomous ground-based robots. 

In the US, local defense companies have also been experimenting with using robot dogs for combat missions. Last year, S.W.O.R.D. International and Ghost Robotics posted photos on social media of a four-legged robot wielding a large sniper rifle. 

However, S.W.O.R.D. told PCMag it didn’t plan on deploying the robot dogs for autonomous use. The goal is to instead rely on human soldiers to operate the robot dogs remotely while in the field. “If we can use this system on any unmanned platform to interrogate these dangerous areas in conjunction with troops on the ground, warfighters will have a better chance of returning home to their families,” the company said.