The long-range sentry tower is one element of Anduril’s advanced counter-UAS airbase defence system. Photo: Anduril Australia.
The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) has entered into a contract for a three-year demonstration of a new advanced system for counter-unmanned systems (C-UAS) air and ground-based defence of air bases.
The contract with Anduril Australia will see that company demonstrate its air and ground C-UAS capabilities at RAAF Base Darwin. The base protection system will bring together a number of active and passive sensors, as well as kinetic and non-kinetic effectors to defend against the threat posed by drones.
The system is powered by Anduril’s open-architecture Lattice software which the company says allows for effective integration and command and control of Anduril’s and third-party sensors and effectors. It says Lattice provides persistent awareness and autonomous detection, classification, and tracking of objects of interest, alerts to potential ground or airborne threats, and offers options for mitigation or engagement.
The company says the contract will allow it to deliver counter drone and counter intrusion as a ‘capability-as-a-service’, meaning Anduril Australia will provide continuous hardware and software system updates, and develop and deploy new capability to ensure the system remains relevant and effective against the rapidly changing threat landscape.
Anduril Australia Executive Chairman and CEO, David Goodrich said current conflicts such as that in Ukraine had shown how rapidly warfare had developed.
“It is critical that advanced technology is in place to protect ADF personnel and equipment against air and ground attacks – now and into the future,” he said.
“Our capability-as-a-service approach is designed to anticipate and respond to rapid technological developments.
Mr Goodrich said the ‘capability-as-a-service’ concept was a relatively new one to Defence, but was commonly used in the tech industry where fast-moving developments needed to be rapidly deployed.
“Hardware and software are regularly updated and upgraded as new developments are available,” he said. This is different to the traditional block upgrade process used in Defence where upgrades may only happen annually or even less frequently.”
Anduril Australia is best known for its 12-metre-long Ghost Shark extra-large autonomous underwater vehicle (XL-AUV) it is developing for the Royal Australian Navy. The first Ghost Shark was unveiled in April and the project has been accelerated through additional funding and support from Defence’s Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA).
