Leading emerging defense technology Anduril It has developed a new product designed to counter the proliferation of low-cost, high-energy aerial threats.
The product is called the Roadrunner, and is a modular, twin-engine, autonomous vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) air vehicle designed at a low cost. Anduril has also developed a variant called the Roadrunner-Munition, or Roadrunner-M, which is a “high-explosive interceptor,” meaning it can carry a warhead and also destroy air threats defensively.
The Roadrunner is unusual in appearance and capability: it is capable of taking off, tracking, and destroying targets; If there is no need to intercept the target, the vehicle can maneuver autonomously to return to base for refueling and reuse. As Chris Bruce, Anduril’s chief strategy officer, said in a recent interview: “We’ve basically built a fighter jet weapon that lands like a Falcon 9.”
Bruce said the product was designed in response to the emergence of fast-moving autonomous air weapons that can be produced in large quantities and at very low cost, a new type of threat. Unlike other solutions out there today, and the legacy rocket systems that preceded it, the Roadrunner-M can also be reused.
“In my opinion, this is the first recoverable weapon ever fielded,” Bruce said. “This is a wonderful thing. The ability to spread […] You can recover it and reuse it if you don’t actually use it in an operation to kill another drone, completely changing how operators can fight with this ability. Today, they have a limited number of interceptor missiles, and if they decide to attack, they will not get them back.”
There are a few other key improvements over older systems, Anduril says: faster launch and takeoff time, three times greater warhead payload capacity, 10 times greater effective range, and three times greater maneuverability in G-forces. Like the rest of Anduril’s systems, the Roadrunner-M can be controlled by Lattice, Andruil’s AI-powered command and control software, or it can be integrated into existing builds.
The other big benefit is for the operator: When faced with a fast-moving threat, the Roadrunner can launch immediately, photograph it, and then receive a signal on whether or not to engage. Because the product is reusable and recoverable, operators can act without fear of potentially losing expensive assets.
Brose said the company has been working closely with an unnamed US government partner since it began designing the Roadrunner nearly two years ago.
“[National defense] “He often gets the stereotype of being just too boring, too slow, too unimaginative, too unexciting,” Bruce said. “I think Anduril is the antithesis of that, and Roadrunner is the embodiment of the kind of excitement that we believe exists in national defense and are very keen to try to bring back.”