U.S. Marines take Google’s robot dog ‘Spot’ for a walk

Sep 23, 2015

Boston Dynamics, subsidiary of Google Inc. (soon to be “Alphabet”) has produced some amazing robotic creations–amid them is Spot, a robotic “dog” designed for traversing different types of terrain. This week, reports Ars Technica, the U.S. Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia took Spot out for a walk.

The Marine base, home of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command brought in a team of engineers from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to test the bot in a variety of conditions. Spot, announced by Boston Dynamics earlier this year, weighs approximately 160 pounds (73kg) and was designed for scouting over rough terrain or inside buildings like a real military dog.

“Spot is great and has exceeded the metrics that we’ve provided,” Captain James Pineiro, head of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab’s Quantico branch, told a Defense Media Activity reporter covering the tests.

Pinerio also showed great enthusiasm about the future use of robots in U.S. military efforts. Giving a small glimpse into the future of robotic warfare.

“The Marines [working with Spot] have been very receptive to the new technology, embrace it and came up with new ideas we couldn’t even dream up. We see it as a great potential for the future dismounted infantry. We want to continue to experiment with quadruped technology and find ways that this can be employed to enhance the Marine Corps warfighting capabilities.”

Spot the robot dog

Spot is currently controlled by a remote operator and is not an autonomous robotic unit–that is it does not operate on its own using an artificial intelligence. The operator uses a video game-like unit from a wireless base station tethered to a laptop computer. The operator can be as far away as 1,641 feet (500 meters) and still control Spot.

The robot is also able to follow a soldier for 20 miles (32 km) while carrying up to 400 lbs (181kg) and, due to breakthroughs in balance and handling, the robot is able to traverse rough terrain and stay upright. In previous coverage on SiliconANGLE, handlers of the robot displayed its excellent balance by kicking it.

The Marines put Spot through a number of drills and situations including making it traverse hills, forests, and urban environments. According to reports, the Marines also had Spot enter a building to scout ahead of a team before the humans entered–using the robot in a fashion that the Marines or Army would a trained dog.

Few other details have surfaced from the tests, but it seems that the U.S Marine Corps is happy with Boston Dynamic’s work.

Also no details on if or when such robots will become part of modern infantry, but it seems a likely thing.

Source: SiliconANGLE