China Has a New Scout Drone (But How Much Does It Matter?)

by Kris Osborn

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Armed assault vehicles operating ground and aerial robots worked in tandem with other combat assets to demonstrate a new People’s Liberation Army tank-like reconnaissance robot.

The recent exercises, the Chinese government-backed Global Times paper said, included “a special mission reconnaissance robot, the use of newly commissioned assault vehicles and the practice of coordinated aerial drone swarm operations.”

The robot is a robot ground vehicle which runs on caterpillar tracks, with sensors and surveillance technology installed on its turret. The Chinese robot engaged in something U.S. Army Futures Command has been working on for years, unmanned-unmanned teaming wherein air and ground drones share information in real time. 

“The robot can replace soldiers in early infiltration missions. It comes with reconnaissance and positioning functions, and can spot and destroy small targets,” said Zhang Xuanming, a squad leader of the PLA brigade, in a CCTV report, as cited by the Global Times. 

While the Chinese are known to have been working on a wide swath of small, medium and large air, sea and ground drones, air-ground drone teaming does present new tactical threats. These include forward-operating reconnaissance missions, greater stand-off range for humans operating in a command and control capacity and even the prospect of coordinated weapons attacks. This raises tactical and ethical concerns, given that the rapid advance of algorithms enabling autonomy are fast-introducing the reality the unmanned systems can find, track and attack targets without human intervention. While the U.S. maintains its “human in the loop” doctrine regarding the use of lethal force, there is little assurance that potential adversaries will embrace a similar posture. 

The use of armored drone vehicles of many sizes and configurations is now being tested within the U.S. military to breach tank ditches, surveil enemy forces, carry ammunition and share targeting data between air-ground-and sea assets. The Army’s recently successful Project Convergence in Yuma, Ariz., offers an interesting window into this kind of tactical dynamic, as mini-drone “air launched effects” were able to acquire targets, pass them to other unmanned assets such as aerial drones which then almost immediately transmitted high-valued targeting specifics through an AI-enabled data base to merge sensor-to-shooter. The kill web attack process has been show not successfully condense that sensor-to-shooter time from twenty minutes to a matter of seconds in some cases. Speed of attack, data sharing and sensor-to-shooter alignment are known as defining elements of future warfare planning. 

Where are the Chinese with this kind of process? This question likely receiving a lot of attention at the moment, given the fast U.S. process. Naturally the aim or intent with this kind of “high-speed” attack technology is to stay in front of a potential adversary in a combat engagement. Therefore, the mere existence of Chinese armed drone vehicles operating in coordination with aerial drones is, in and of itself, not necessarily a massive risk, per say. Rather, the speed at which information can be shared and transmitted between drones and sent to an optimal attack weapon, seems like it would determine the actual severity of any kind of Chinese threat. The Global Times report says little to nothing about the actual speed, bandwidth and targeting precision achieved by the new robot. Simple drone networking has long-been established as a technical possibility, thus it may remain fully unclear just how advanced Chinese drone networking might actually be. However, it would be silly to think these kinds of Chinese weapons developments are not getting attention at the Pentagon. 

Kris Osborn is the defense editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.