Miloch
October 5th 19, 03:16 AM
more at
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30162/u-s-military-is-buying-these-small-interceptor-drones-to-knock-down-other-drones
A small California-based tech startup has reportedly begun supplying small "hard
kill" attack drones to the U.S. military that are designed to bring down
similarly sized hostile unmanned aircraft by physically smashing into them. The
market, within the United States and around the world, for counter-drone
systems, ranging from electronic warfare jammers to directed energy weapons to
suicide drones, has exploded in recent years as the threats that even relatively
cheap and diminutive unmanned aircraft pose has become glaringly apparent.
Anduril Industries unveiled what it is presently referring to simply as the
"Interceptor" on Oct. 3, 2019. The company says it started delivering its system
to the U.S. and U.K. militaries earlier in the year and now has a contract to
support activities at an unspecified location overseas, likely as part of a
field test, according to reports from Bloomberg and NBC News. Anduril has not
specified what American or British military branches specifically it has been
working with as part of the project or whether there are any additional foreign
customers.
"All the soft kill systems are a waste of time," Palmer Luckey, on of Anduril's
co-founders, told Bloomberg in an interview. Luckey was referring to other
counter-drone systems that seek to disable their targets by using electronic
warfare, typically by jamming the unmanned aircraft's links to a ground control
station. The hope is that this would cause it to fall out of the sky or initiate
a pre-programmed emergency function that tells it to return to the point of
launch. U.S. Marines used just such a system earlier this year to knock down two
Iranian drones in the Strait of Hormuz. This might have limited, if any impact
on a drone, or a networked swarm of them, operating in a semi-autonomous or
fully autonomous mode that does not require a constant connection with a human
operator.
Anduril's quad-copter Interceptor uses its own onboard electro-optical and
infrared sensors to spot, track, and, as the name implies, intercept the target.
An operator on the ground can watch the feed through a hand-held controller and
then gives the final order to attack the threat.
The sensor technology, and the computer algorithm behind it, are based on
ground-based and small drone surveillance systems that Anduril has already
developed since the company's founding in 2017. Some of these earlier systems
are already in service with U.S. Customs and Border Protection along America's
southwestern border with Mexico and the U.S. Marine Corps also began buying some
of the firm's existing products earlier this year, after having tested them in
the past.
After getting approval to attack, the Interceptor, which is "roughly the weight
of a bowling ball," typically between 10 and 16 pounds, according to NBC,
smashes into the target at approximately 100 miles per hour. This is enough
force to destroy the target and bring it down.
"It almost always survives and returns to base," Luckey wrote on Twitter in
response to a question about whether the Interceptor was a single-use system.
"But for planning purposes, it makes sense to assume one interceptor per
target."
more at
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30162/u-s-military-is-buying-these-small-interceptor-drones-to-knock-down-other-drones
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https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30162/u-s-military-is-buying-these-small-interceptor-drones-to-knock-down-other-drones
A small California-based tech startup has reportedly begun supplying small "hard
kill" attack drones to the U.S. military that are designed to bring down
similarly sized hostile unmanned aircraft by physically smashing into them. The
market, within the United States and around the world, for counter-drone
systems, ranging from electronic warfare jammers to directed energy weapons to
suicide drones, has exploded in recent years as the threats that even relatively
cheap and diminutive unmanned aircraft pose has become glaringly apparent.
Anduril Industries unveiled what it is presently referring to simply as the
"Interceptor" on Oct. 3, 2019. The company says it started delivering its system
to the U.S. and U.K. militaries earlier in the year and now has a contract to
support activities at an unspecified location overseas, likely as part of a
field test, according to reports from Bloomberg and NBC News. Anduril has not
specified what American or British military branches specifically it has been
working with as part of the project or whether there are any additional foreign
customers.
"All the soft kill systems are a waste of time," Palmer Luckey, on of Anduril's
co-founders, told Bloomberg in an interview. Luckey was referring to other
counter-drone systems that seek to disable their targets by using electronic
warfare, typically by jamming the unmanned aircraft's links to a ground control
station. The hope is that this would cause it to fall out of the sky or initiate
a pre-programmed emergency function that tells it to return to the point of
launch. U.S. Marines used just such a system earlier this year to knock down two
Iranian drones in the Strait of Hormuz. This might have limited, if any impact
on a drone, or a networked swarm of them, operating in a semi-autonomous or
fully autonomous mode that does not require a constant connection with a human
operator.
Anduril's quad-copter Interceptor uses its own onboard electro-optical and
infrared sensors to spot, track, and, as the name implies, intercept the target.
An operator on the ground can watch the feed through a hand-held controller and
then gives the final order to attack the threat.
The sensor technology, and the computer algorithm behind it, are based on
ground-based and small drone surveillance systems that Anduril has already
developed since the company's founding in 2017. Some of these earlier systems
are already in service with U.S. Customs and Border Protection along America's
southwestern border with Mexico and the U.S. Marine Corps also began buying some
of the firm's existing products earlier this year, after having tested them in
the past.
After getting approval to attack, the Interceptor, which is "roughly the weight
of a bowling ball," typically between 10 and 16 pounds, according to NBC,
smashes into the target at approximately 100 miles per hour. This is enough
force to destroy the target and bring it down.
"It almost always survives and returns to base," Luckey wrote on Twitter in
response to a question about whether the Interceptor was a single-use system.
"But for planning purposes, it makes sense to assume one interceptor per
target."
more at
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30162/u-s-military-is-buying-these-small-interceptor-drones-to-knock-down-other-drones
*