At this time, Anduril is unveiling the Barracuda household of air-breathing, software-defined expendable Autonomous Air Autos (AAVs) which can be optimized for inexpensive, hyper-scale manufacturing.
The Barracuda household of AAVs consists of Barracuda-100, Barracuda-250, and Barracuda-500. Every increment provides rising measurement, vary and payload capability, however all Barracudas are appropriate with a bunch of payloads and employment mechanisms, help a wide range of completely different missions, and supply warfighters with an adaptable and upgradeable functionality to counter evolving threats. Barracuda-M is the munition configuration of Barracuda that delivers a extra inexpensive, producible, obtainable, and adaptable cruise missile functionality than present choices obtainable to warfighters as we speak.
The US and our allies and companions should not have sufficient missiles to credibly deter battle with a near-peer adversary. Our present arsenals of precision-guided munitions could be exhausted in a matter of days in a high-end battle. The issue extends past stock alone, nevertheless: present cruise missiles are outlined by restricted manufacturing capability, nonexistent on-call surge capability, and minimal upgradeability when know-how and mission wants inevitably change. That’s as a result of present missile designs are extremely advanced, require 1000’s of distinctive instruments to supply, demand highly-specialized labor and supplies, and are constructed on the backs of tenuous, brittle, and defense-specific provide chains. We’d like an order of magnitude extra weapons, and we want them to be extra producible, clever, upgradeable, and versatile.
The Barracuda household of AAVs is designed to rebuild America’s arsenal of air-breathing precision-guided munitions and air autos. Barracuda options superior autonomous behaviors and different software-defined capabilities, and it’s obtainable in configurations providing 500+ nautical miles of vary, 100+ kilos of payload capability, 5 Gs of maneuverability, and greater than 120 minutes of loitering time. The car’s quick speeds, excessive maneuverability, and prolonged ranges are made doable by Barracuda’s turbojets, air-breathing engines that soak up air to combust their gasoline. The result’s a very smart, low-cost weapon system that’s able to direct, stand-in, or stand-off strike missions in keeping with present necessities however quickly adaptable to future mission wants as a result of its excessive diploma of modularity and upgradeability.
Barracuda-100M, Barracuda-250M, and Barracuda-500M are probably the most producible cruise missiles in the marketplace as we speak. A single Barracuda takes 50 % much less time to supply, requires 95 % fewer instruments, and 50 % fewer components than competing options in the marketplace as we speak. In consequence, the Barracuda household of AAVs is 30 % cheaper on common than different options, enabling inexpensive mass and cost-effective, large-scale employment.
Designed for agile and inexpensive hyper-scale manufacturing
Barracuda is purpose-built to carry mass to the battle. Designed from the ground-up for hyper-scale manufacturing, Barracuda manufacturing charges are designed to maintain tempo with the risk and will be doubled on-call to fulfill short-term surges in demand.
Barracuda is designed to be easy to fabricate, each by way of tooling and expertise. Designed for fast meeting at low price, the Barracuda household of AAVs solely requires ten or much less instruments to assemble, guaranteeing that each new and present manufacturing strains will be quickly spun as much as produce AAVs at hyper-scale. The simplicity of Barracuda’s design and manufacturing course of has an extra profit: Barracuda will be produced by the broad business automotive and shopper electronics workforce, slightly than relying solely on the a lot smaller, over-stretched, highly-specialized, defense-specific manufacturing labor pool required to supply present options.
Each Barracuda variant is made up of a handful of frequent subsystems to make sure that the missiles will be quickly optimized primarily based on altering mission wants. New subsystems will be quickly swapped into reside manufacturing strains when threats evolve and new applied sciences emerge, offering warfighters with the agility required to adapt at mission velocity. And in contrast to present options that leverage brittle, defense-specific provide chains, Barracuda’s subsystems are made up of commercially derived and widely-available parts that present provide chain resiliency, redundancy, and surge capability.
Barracuda-100 packs excessive efficiency right into a small, modular type issue that unlocks new floor or air-launched ideas of operation for tactical forces.
Software program-defined efficiency
Whereas the simplicity of Barracuda’s {hardware} design is what allows hyper-scale manufacturing, software program is what differentiates Barracuda’s efficiency. Powered and managed by Anduril’s Lattice for Mission Autonomy software program, Barracuda is able to novel autonomous and collaborative behaviors, unlocking new ideas of employment that improve survivability and effectiveness towards giant goal units in contested environments. And, as a software-defined, hardware-enabled platform, Barracuda’s efficiency and behaviors will be quickly and repeatedly up to date to fulfill evolving mission necessities on the velocity of relevance, not like present beautiful cruise missiles that require months or years to replace.
Goal-built for versatile employment
The Barracuda household of AAVs brings unparalleled flexibility to the battle. Barracuda variants will be employed from a wide range of completely different air, floor or maritime platforms to help a spread of mission units. Suitable with inner weapons bays of fifth-generation plane, exterior rails of fourth-generation fixed-wing and rotary-wing plane, MFOM launchers and Widespread Launch Tubes (CLTs), floor vessels, palletized employment from airlift plane, and extra, Barracuda gives theater commanders with versatile employment choices.
The Barracuda household of AAVs will be configured with a spread of payloads to help all kinds of missions.
With 500+ nm vary and 100+ lb payload capability, Barracuda-500 will be air-launched en masse to ship a wide range of results for prolonged vary missions.
Rebuilding the Arsenal
Barracuda is the most recent instance of how Anduril is main the cost to ship inexpensive mass and rebuild America’s arsenal of democracy. Barracuda is designed from the ground-up for producibility, flexibility, modularity, upgradeability, and affordability, delivering the aptitude and mass required to discourage or prevail in a high-end battle.
Anduril is deeply dedicated to rebuilding the arsenal of democracy by combining trendy software program with leading edge {hardware} improvement and hyper-scale manufacturing experience. From autonomous fighter jets to air-breathing cruise missiles, Anduril is driving a paradigm shift in air dominance and strike that’s squarely targeted on inexpensive mass and mission autonomy.
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