Chinese military reveals drone wolf pack capable of swarm operations — robot dogs can be equipped with grenade launchers and machine guns for urban combat

(Image credit: Getty Images)

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) just revealed its intelligent canine robots that can work together in a swarm for urban combat. These “wolf packs” were shown off on a TV documentary named Unmanned Competition for the state channel CCTV, according to the South China Morning Post. What made these new drone models different was that they could coordinate directly with each other, allowing a group of robot dogs to be controlled by a single soldier without micromanagement.

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There are various ways of controlling the entire drone task force, including through voice commands, via a tactical glove, or by a control stick that can be directly mounted on rifles. While these machines can operate independently and are capable of autonomous identification and targeting, it’s said that they still require human confirmation to conduct a strike.

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Combined drone arms

The robot wolves aren’t limited to land operations. While they cannot take flight, they can coordinate their actions with other drones to combine air-ground operations. One such example is the Atlas uncrewed aerial vehicle, which works together as a single swarm with up to 96 individual drones with specific tasks, including reconnaissance, jamming, and strikes. This is aside from the 200-strong AI drone swarm that the PLA revealed earlier this year, which was also controlled by a single operator.

Modern battlefields have shown that airborne drones pose a major threat in combat operations, so the Chinese military also showed off two anti-drone laser weapons. The Guangjian 11-E uses a more energy-efficient low-power laser designed to take down smaller drones, like the ones that are typically sold commercially, while the more powerful 21-A version is built for “hard destruction,” likely meaning it’s powerful enough to destroy an airborne target.

Finally, police in Zhuhai, Guangdong, located outside of Macau and across the bay to the west of Hong Kong, showcased their L30 uncrewed surface vessels. These autonomous boats can hit 35 knots (around 65 kph or 40 mph) and have a range of 300 nautical miles (about 556 km or 345 miles). Just like the other drones, the L30 fleet can work together and use AI for targeting and response. It can also perform blockades and ram other vessels to disable them, as necessary.

One more technology that Chinese researchers are working on for these drones is “satellite-denied navigation,” which would allow these weapons to operate and coordinate, even in areas where there is jamming and active signal denial. Their goal is to achieve “large-scale full autonomy,” allowing the Chinese military to deploy combined arms drone task forces to achieve military objectives without needing human intervention.

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Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.