It looks like something out of the dystopian show “Black Mirror,” but it’s just the latest adaptation of robotics for the modern battlefield. During recent military drills with Cambodia, China’s military showed off a robot dog with an automatic rifle mounted on its back, essentially turning man’s best (electronic) friend into a futuristic weapon. “It can serve as a new member in our urban combat operations, replacing our human members to conduct reconnaissance and identify the enemy and strike the target,” a soldier identified as Chen Wei says in a video from state broadcaster CCTV. The two-minute video made during the China-Cambodia “Golden Dragon 2024” exercise also shows the robot dog walking, hopping, lying down and moving backwards under the control of a remote operator. In one drill, the rifle-firing robot leads an infantry unit into a simulated building. The latter part of the video also shows an automatic rifle mounted under a six-rotor aerial drone. Military use of robot dogs and small aerial drones is nothing new. A CCTV video from last year also highlighted China’s rifle-armed electronic canines in a joint exercise involving the Chinese, Cambodian, Lao, Malaysian, Thai and Vietnamese militaries held last November. In 2020, the U.S. Air Force demonstrated how it used robotic dogs as one link in its Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), which uses artificial intelligence and rapid data analytics to detect and counter threats to soldiers. And since the Russian-Ukraine conflict broke out in 2022, drones have become commonplace on the battlefield, on the land, sea and air, with cheap remotely controlled vehicles able to knock out sophisticated military machines like tanks and even warships. The lethal abilities of drones seen on the Ukraine battlefields have shown them to be a game changer. Despite export controls on certain types of drones, China is still one of the world’s leading drone exporters. The robot dogs have been popping up on China’s social media for a year. “Usually, a new gadget will not be brought into a joint exercise with another country, so the robot dogs must have reached a certain level of technical maturity,” the Beijing-based Global Times quoted an unnamed expert as saying. (SD-Agencies) Words to Learn 相關(guān)詞匯 【步兵】bùbīng infantry the part of an army that fights on foot 【司空見慣】sīkōng jiànguàn commonplace ordinary 這看起來像是烏托邦劇《黑鏡》里的東西，但其實(shí)這只是機(jī)器人技術(shù)在現(xiàn)代戰(zhàn)場上的最新應(yīng)用。 在最近與柬埔寨的聯(lián)合軍事演習(xí)中，中國軍方展示了一種背上裝有自動(dòng)步槍的機(jī)器狗，人類最好的朋友變成了先進(jìn)武器。 “它可以作為我們城市作戰(zhàn)行動(dòng)中的新成員，代替我們的士兵進(jìn)行偵察、識(shí)別敵人并打擊目標(biāo)，”在中央電視臺(tái)的一段視頻中，一位名叫陳偉的士兵說。 這段兩分鐘的視頻是在中柬“金龍2024”演習(xí)期間拍攝的，視頻中還顯示了機(jī)器狗在遠(yuǎn)程操作員的控制下行走、跳躍、臥倒和向后移動(dòng)的過程。 在一次演習(xí)中，步槍射擊機(jī)器狗帶領(lǐng)一支步兵部隊(duì)進(jìn)入模擬建筑物。 視頻的后半部分還展示了安裝在六旋翼無人機(jī)下的自動(dòng)步槍。 軍方使用機(jī)器狗和小型無人機(jī)并非新鮮事。去年11月，在中國、柬埔寨、老撾、馬來西亞、泰國和越南軍隊(duì)參加的一次聯(lián)合演習(xí)中，央視的一段視頻也重點(diǎn)展示了裝備步槍的機(jī)器狗。 2020 年，美國空軍展示了如何利用機(jī)器狗作為其先進(jìn)戰(zhàn)斗管理系統(tǒng)（ABMS）的一個(gè)環(huán)節(jié)，該系統(tǒng)利用人工智能和快速數(shù)據(jù)分析來探測和應(yīng)對(duì)士兵面臨的威脅。 自2022年俄烏沖突爆發(fā)以來，無人機(jī)在海陸空戰(zhàn)場上已變得司空見慣，便宜的遙控飛行器可以擊毀坦克甚至軍艦等精密軍事機(jī)器。在烏克蘭戰(zhàn)場上看到的無人機(jī)的致命能力表明，它們可以改變游戲規(guī)則。 盡管某些類型的無人機(jī)受到出口管制，但中國仍然是世界上主要的無人機(jī)出口國之一。 一年來，社交媒體上不斷出現(xiàn)機(jī)器狗的身影。 總部位于北京的《環(huán)球時(shí)報(bào)》援引一位不愿透露姓名的專家的話說：“通常情況下，一種新裝備不會(huì)被帶入與他國的聯(lián)合演習(xí)中，因此機(jī)器狗必定達(dá)到了相當(dāng)?shù)募夹g(shù)成熟度。” (Translated by Debra) | 