A new robotic vehicle displayed at ‘Airshow China’ defense expo in Zhuhai this week is equipped with a missile called by its developers a ‘micro-intelligent missile’. The tube-launched weapon weighs only one kilogram but is equipped with energetic rocket propulsion powerful enough to carry it on a flight up to 2,000 meters, and a warhead, (likely shaped charge) designed to defeat light armor. The missile that measures 40mm in diameter and 500mm in length looks similar in size and shape to Raytheon’s Pike missile designed that is also launched from 40mm grenade launchers. The weapon uses electro-optical guidance to deliver an accuracy of 0.5 meters with a lethality radius of 12 meters (against human targets). The term ‘intelligent’ probably refers to the missile’s ‘fire and forget’ capability, with targets acquired by the controller through the vehicle’s electro-optical unit and transferred to the missile’s seeker before launch.
