Company insight
factored for their use under current warfighting conditions.”
Nor are they necessarily the only ones to be stuck in the past. Constant, for his part, suggests that some Western militaries still consider UASs a mere “unconventional threat” rather than the conventional danger they now are. More to the point, this attitude has serious practical consequences. Quite aside from the columns of smouldering tanks, the war in Ukraine has proved that traditional CUAS systems force soldiers to stay in limited air defence bubbles, seriously hampering their manoeuvrability.
Robust technical skills How to counter these difficulties? For Constant, the answer begins with treating CUAS not as something that can be solved quickly, but rather as a “problem set” that requires multiple overlapping solutions. From there, he argues, insiders need to be “agile enough” to keep up with a threat that is continuously evolving. Certainly, Anduril’s work suggests the company is following both these principles to the letter. Based in California and funded by venture capital, the company can hire the best talent and keep up with UASs as they evolve at speed.
If nothing else, this is reflected in the practical work Constant and his team are doing. For starters, Anduril works to “fuse different sensor modalities together” – helping CUAS operators locate incoming aerial threats quickly and efficiently, unlike older radar-based platforms.
From there, the company uses AI to Robust underpinnings
The Long Range Sentry Tower is equipped with an ultra high powered, 360 degree radar.
It goes without saying that this technical wizardry enjoys robust philosophical underpinnings. Rather than simply fulfilling a contract then moving on, Anduril instead offers what Constant describes as CUAS “as a service” – allowing the company to “build and adapt our products to keep pace with an ever-evolving threat picture.” This is underscored by Anduril being awarded a SOCOM Systems Integration Partner contract for the next decade, valued at $1bn. In large part, Constant and his team are able to be so flexible thanks to their company’s core focus. As these references to AI and mesh networking imply, Anduril is a software first provider, one that leverages what Constant calls an “open architecture philosophy” to seamlessly integrate new
Defence & Security Systems International /
www.defence-and-security.com
Anduril's CUAS drone, Anvil, navigates autonomously to intercept potential drone threats and provide visual feedback for positive identification by a human operator.
make its CUAS platforms less manpower intensive than traditional alternatives. Rather than having dozens of troops analysing sensor data manually, Constant instead explains that his company's software layer, Lattice, “is able to process and fuse huge quantities of sensor data at pace – by leveraging computer vision and machine learning – then escalate and prioritise threats to human operators meaning they can take actions and seamlessly task their effectors as fast as possible.” Anduril is doing similar work in other areas. Exploiting secure mesh networking, for example, means that CUAS platforms are far less open to cyber attacks, while edge computing offers greater redundancy if something goes wrong. At the same time, integrating signature-free systems helps keep CUAS platforms safer from enemy intelligence.
sensor types and modalities into CUAS without needing to constantly build new hardware. Given how quickly UAS technology is developing – the military drone market currently enjoys a CAGR of 6.6% – this strategy seems wise.
That is doubly true in the specifics, with Constant describing how UAS makers are always looking for ways to up their game, for instance by masking a particular radio frequency signature or mitigating the effectiveness of a specific sensor. Fortunately, Anduril can also keep abreast of these developments thanks to its close links with defence ministries. “We’re really focused on building the products that the defence industry needs and wants,” Constant explains. “We build collaborative partnerships with defence customers to really understand their requirements.”
The real-world benefits of these relationships are equally obvious too, for instance when Anduril encountered a software problem and was able to write code mitigating the vulnerability over the space of a single day. No wonder Constant says his company boasts a “very aggressive” software release cycle. All this bodes well for the future, where the cat-and-mouse fight between UAS and CUAS shows no sign of abating. “The field will continue to evolve at a rapid pace,” Constant argues, adding that both growing government enthusiasm and low costs will force CUAS experts to stay on their guard. A fair point – even if his team at Anduril is clearly well-placed for whatever comes their way. ●
www.anduril.com 27
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