US Space Force sending robot dogs to patrol port

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The US Space Force is deploying robot dogs to patrol its Cape Canaveral station, the Department of Defense has said.

The Space Force, which is the youngest branch of the US military, said on Monday that it is deploying Ghost Robotics’ “quadruped unmanned ground vehicles (Q-UGVs)” for “damage assessments and patrol”.

It is hoping to use these dog-like robots to carry out manual and repetitive patrol tasks that can be automated, the Department of Defense said in a statement.

It said Space Launch Delta 45 – the unit responsible for all space launch operations from the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral – would use the Q-UGV robot dogs “to save significant man hours”.

Images released by the Department of Defense show personnel with a hand controller inside a hangar that seemingly is used to control the robot dogs.

Ghost Robotics noted in its website that the Vision 60 Q-UGV robots are mid-sized high-endurance, agile and durable all-weather ground drones for “defense, homeland, and enterprise applications” to keep “warfighters, workers and K9s out of harm’s way”.

The robot dog, weighing around 50kg, can be equipped with a range of sensors that enable them to work as automated “eyes and ears”.

The Q-UGVs can reportedly also act as communication nodes.

It can also carry antennas to extend networks beyond existing infrastructure, Space.com reported.

“Even if the environment is completely unknown, vision sensors degrade or fail, you can be assured that when our legged robot does fail, slip or fall, it will get right back up and continue moving,” the company noted in its website.

This isn’t the first time the robot dogs have been spotted in action with federal forces in the US.

These robots have also been tested by the US Air Force in 2020 for perimeter defense tasks, and for testing its Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) data-sharing network.

In February this year, critics blamed the decision by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to deploy robot dogs to patrol the country’s southern border with Mexico.

Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed the decision saying it is “shameful” that money was being channeled into such “militarisation”.

“It’s shameful how both parties fight tooth + nail to defend their ability to pump endless public money into militarisation,” she tweeted.

Critics of the move called it dehumanising and invasive and the American Civil Liberties Union called on the Joe Biden administration to cease the programme.