WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF
Drones will only get smaller, explosives more powerful, and the threats from both bigger.
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We continue to see the weaponisation of drone technology in war, which includes everything from attaching machine guns to drones to fully armed loiter drones that wait around at high altitude until they spot the optimum time to strike. Now, Anduril Industries who wants to lead the industry has just announced the Bolt and Bolt-M drone. These aren’t your average hobbyist drones either, as the M stands for “munitions,” packing up to a 3 lb (1.4 kg) payload of your favorite tactical ordnance. From the creator of the Oculus Rift, which Meta bought from him years ago for billions of dollars, Palmer Luckey has gone all-in in the defense industry with a heavy focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven technology, centralized around Anduril’s Lattice AI platform.
“Lattice accelerates complex kill chains by orchestrating machine-to-machine tasks at scales and speeds beyond human capacity,” is the catchline for the Lattice Command and Control feature, according to the Anduril website.
“Autonomous Hardware Meets Autonomy Software.” Another tagline on Anduril’s website. Is anyone else getting goosebumps?
Bolt and Bolt-M are another defensive-offensive tool that has been designed to work on the Lattice AI network of already existing tech Anduril has created: Swarm cruise missiles, underwater AI-driven drone submarines, Autonomous Air Vehicles (AAV) including unmanned fighter drones and drone helicopters.
Anduril even has a drone design that very much resembles the MQ-9 Reaper that can be launched out of a cannon while carrying warheads up to 33 lb (15 kg). Powered by Lattice.
The Bolt fits neatly in a backpack, weighs 12 lb (5.4 kg), and can be deployed in under five minutes from anywhere. Its primary purpose is ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) and search and rescue. It can be flown manually but hosts a suite of autonomous features for tracking and stalking targets, even through occlusions.
It has a 45-minute flight time and a 12.4-mile (20 km) range.
Bolt maintains a steady connection with the Lattice AI which is continuously monitoring data from any and all available sources, not just other Anduril hardware.
The Bolt-M is a near-identical machine, however with its modular design, it is compatible with warhead or munitions payloads up to 3 lb, and operators can easily swap between choices like anti-personnel or anti-materiel (for disabling vehicles and armor) warheads.
The drone operator is presented with four simple decisions: where to look, what to follow, how to engage, and when to strike. A touchscreen controller allows the human operator to make these choices.
Once a target has been selected, the human operator can set parameters for the angle of attack while the onboard vision and guidance algorithms handle the rest, even if the drone is no longer in contact with the operator.
With its additional weight, the Bolt-M has a 40-minute flight time with the same 12.4-mile range and both versions feature toolless swappable batteries for extended flights.
