(CNN) -
It looked like a science fiction scene.
Leaving the planes of the United States Air Force, four-legged robot dogs raced towards an airfield in the Mojave Desert, offering a possible preview of the future of war.
But last week's exercise, one of the largest high-tech experiments ever conducted by the US military, was not a movie set.
Flying into a possibly hostile airstrip aboard an Air Force C-130, the robot dogs were dispatched off the aircraft to search for threats before the humans inside were exposed to them, according to a press release. of the Air Force on September 3.
Electronic canines are just one link in what the US military calls the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS).
It uses artificial intelligence and rapid data analysis to detect and counter threats to US military assets at the site and potential homeland attacks with missiles or other means.
A prototype of the Ghost Robotics Vision 60 operates out of Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.
Will Roper, the Air Force's undersecretary for procurement, technology and logistics, said that in a future battlefield, soldiers will face "a dizzying array of information" to evaluate and will need to rely on data synthesis performed in nanoseconds to fight back. effective way.
"Valuing data as an essential warfare resource, one no less vital than jet fuel or satellites, is the key to next-generation warfare," Roper said in an Air Force press release on the ABMS exercise. .
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The latest ABMS exercise, from Aug. 31 to Sept. 3, involved all branches of the U.S. military, including the Coast Guard, plus dozens of industry teams, and used 30 sites across the country.
Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada was one of those, and that's where robot dogs came into play.
"The dogs give us images of the area, all while keeping our defenders closer to the plane," First Sgt. Lee Boston, a member of Devil Raiders, the nickname of the Air Force's 621 Contingency Response Group, said in the statement.
Sergeant John Rodriguez with one of the robot dogs in Nevada.
The dogs are called Vision 60 UGVs, or "autonomous unmanned ground vehicles" by their manufacturer, Ghost Robotics of Philadelphia.
The company promotes their ability to operate in any terrain or environment and that at the same time they are adaptable to carry a series of sensors and radios, for each robot dog, a fairly simple platform.
"A fundamental design principle for our legged robots is reduced mechanical complexity compared to any other legged robot, and even traditional wheeled UGVs," says the company's website.
"By reducing complexity, we inherently increase durability, agility and endurance," he says.
"Our Q-UGVs are unstoppable."
And in the American military of the future, they may be a vital component of what an Air Force statement calls the "chain of death."
“We are exploring how to use… ABMS to link sensors to shooters in all battle spaces, at speed and under threat.
These concepts and capabilities need to mature to fight and win in the information age, ”said General John Raymond, chief of space operations, in an Air Force statement.
"Our fighters and commandos must fight at Internet speed to win," said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Brown Jr.
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