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Why China’s ammunition factories are being turned over to robots
SCMP ^ | 01 January, 2018 | Stephen Chen

Posted on 01/01/2018 6:51:26 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster

Why China’s ammunition factories are being turned over to robots

‘Smart machines’ could treble bomb and shell production capacity in less than a decade

PUBLISHED : Monday, 01 January, 2018, 8:21pm UPDATED : Monday, 01 January, 2018, 11:28pm

Robots could treble China’s bomb and shell production capacity in less than a decade according to a senior scientist involved in a programme that is using artificial intelligence to boost the productivity of ammunition factories.

Xu Zhigang, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Shenyang Institute of Automation and a lead scientist with China’s “high-level weapon system intelligent manufacturing programme”, told the South China Morning Post last Wednesday that about a quarter of the country’s ammunition factories had replaced many workers with “smart machines” or begun to do so.

The robots, with man-made “hands and eyes”, could assemble different types of deadly explosives including artillery shells, bombs and rockets, he said. They could also make more sophisticated ammunition such as guided bombs, equipped with computer chips and sensors, that could carry out precision strikes.

They were five times as productive as a human worker, Xu said, but logistical factors such as the supply of raw materials meant the overall productivity boost would fall between 100 to 200 per cent “at a minimum” once all China’s ammunition factories were upgraded in the next decade, Xu said.

(Excerpt) Read more at scmp.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: china; expansionism; fascism; munition; robot; robots
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U.S. should do this, too, if they want to produce enough stockpile of weapons with less defense spending. Hiring more workers may not be enough.
1 posted on 01/01/2018 6:51:26 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
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To: TigerLikesRooster

Quantity has a quality of its own. The question is does the PRC have the tech to do so.


2 posted on 01/01/2018 6:55:46 PM PST by buckalfa (I was so much older then, but I'm younger than that now.)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

I suspect many of our ammunition factories are automated where possible.

But, given they have little reason to be competitive (government contracts) they may not be.


3 posted on 01/01/2018 6:56:56 PM PST by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries.)
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To: buckalfa

Probably more to do with raising quality standards as well as production rates.


4 posted on 01/01/2018 6:57:34 PM PST by Billyv (Freedom isn't Free! Get off the sidelines!)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

Yep. Factories and warehouses will increasingly become almost completely automated. Anyone with these types of jobs better upgrade their skills and move on. It won’t happen overnight but it will happen.


5 posted on 01/01/2018 7:00:28 PM PST by plain talk
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To: buckalfa

The country which manufactures fully 90% of ALL COMPUTERS in the world?

I sure think so.

The question any more, is do we?

I know, that is meant (partly) in jest.

Partly.


6 posted on 01/01/2018 7:00:55 PM PST by cba123 ( Toi la nguoi My. Toi bay gio o Viet Nam.)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

Treble: Make or become three times as large or numerous.


7 posted on 01/01/2018 7:03:07 PM PST by Sawdring
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To: TigerLikesRooster

Can Chinese citizens buy and use ammunition?


8 posted on 01/01/2018 7:15:28 PM PST by umgud
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To: plain talk

Been happening steadily. More in medical and agriculture now. Growing in military. AI will be intellectual robotization, coming to management and rules-based professions soon. Brave new world. Of the brainiacs developing it all, I suspect fewer are from America now.


9 posted on 01/01/2018 7:24:16 PM PST by polymuser (Its terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged today. - Chesterton)
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To: umgud
No, never in a million years. If that happens, there will be no communist regime. The regime will quickly lose control of their country. You are talking about their single most terrifying nightmare.
10 posted on 01/01/2018 7:24:31 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster (dead parakeet + lost fishing gear = freep all day)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

If you tell a machine to put sixty grains of powder in a cartridge, it will do it until it runs out of powder or you tell it to.


11 posted on 01/01/2018 7:26:33 PM PST by Vermont Lt (Burn. It. Down.)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

Why would you *not* want robotic ammo production?


12 posted on 01/01/2018 7:29:18 PM PST by Attention Surplus Disorder (Apoplectic is where we want them.)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

Back in the mid-’80s, I had a tour of a new munitions plant which manufactured 155mm artillery shells and cluster bomblets. It was probably 90% robotic or otherwise automated, from the production lines to the storage bunkers - including the transport shuttles that moved completed explosives into storage. Even then, it looked like a sci-fi movie set. There were relatively few people on-site to run the machines, all of whom worked behind blast barriers and viewed everything by CCTV.


13 posted on 01/01/2018 7:31:47 PM PST by Charles Martel (Progressives are the crab grass in the lawn of life.)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

We need this in the US for .22 production. It’s still scarce in Alaska, especially in brick size.


14 posted on 01/01/2018 7:32:29 PM PST by AlaskaErik (I served and protected my country for 31 years. Progressives spent that time trying to destroy it.)
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder
When everybody involved is happy with status quo, if it provides fat profit to defense industry and government officials.
15 posted on 01/01/2018 7:34:37 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster (dead parakeet + lost fishing gear = freep all day)
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To: AlaskaErik

https://ammoseek.com/ammo/22lr


16 posted on 01/01/2018 7:36:22 PM PST by BipolarBob (At one time I held the world record as the worlds youngest person on the planet.)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; Convert from ECUSA; ...

Sex robots could be hacked to murder people
indy100.com/
Posted on 01/01/2018 12:16:52 PM PST by BenLurkin
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3618573/posts


17 posted on 01/01/2018 7:41:48 PM PST by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

Unfortunately our defense prioritization is more oriented towards massaging voters for politicians,


18 posted on 01/01/2018 7:45:59 PM PST by Axenolith (Government blows, and that which governs least, blows least...)
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To: Axenolith

A hacker could sure have fun in one of those factories.


19 posted on 01/01/2018 7:53:07 PM PST by oldasrocks (rump)
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To: oldasrocks

“A hacker could sure have fun in one of those factories.”

Can you say Stuxnet?


20 posted on 01/01/2018 8:25:39 PM PST by vette6387
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