Really cheap ground driving or walking drones can be an effective way to rapidly clear minefields too. It's a good area for decoys too. If some of them have advanced thermal sensors and maybe some weapons then they'll be a target for the enemy but you can have a bunch of real cheap dogshit versions that can't do much more than move forward.

Also there is still the air breathing battery technology, which isnt ready but is very high performance, double the charge or half the size. The limitation is something that might not matter for one time use drones, where the limitation is that the batteries corrode and don't have many recharge cycles. That's bad for phones but fine for disposable drones. I expect that will be a thing within 5 years.

[–] j4k3@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

It would probably be more effective to use lithium and have a charge threshold where it just stops and acts as a sensor and mesh communications node. In that kind of mode, the battery life would be nearly indefinite. If the front line moves well past, they are recovered. If not, they are a mined explosive or ready to make a last stand.

Even at $3k-$10k robot dogs are dirt cheap next to training a human for 3-6 months.