Login
iscover
Defence industry disruptor Anduril has formally unveiled its modular Roadrunner autonomous air vehicle for the first time in Australia at Land Forces 2024.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
Anduril’s Roadrunner is a reusable, modular twin-jet powered autonomous air vehicle capable of operating at high subsonic speed and taking off vertically to identify, track and intercept a wide variety of aerial threats, including Group 3 UAS (and above).
Roadrunner is in use with US Department of Defense customers and is providing air defence capabilities in some of the most complex operational environments around the world.
Alongside Roadrunner, Anduril also has a suite of products on display at Land Forces, including Anvil (counter-UAS), Altius 600 and 700 variants (ISR and loitering munitions), WISP (Wide-area Infrared Sensing system) and the Long Range Sentry Tower-42.
David Goodrich OAM, executive chairman and CEO, Anduril Australia, celebrated this unveiling, saying, “We’re excited to introduce Roadrunner as part of our end-to-end counter-UAS system to the Australian market.”
If there’s no need to destroy the target, Roadrunner can simply return to base and land at a pre-designated location for immediate refuelling and reuse.
Goodrich added, “Across recent conflicts, we have seen malicious actors increasingly using state-owned and commercially available drone technology with devastating effect against more exquisite systems. It is critical that advanced counter UAS systems are in place to protect Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel and equipment against these asymmetric threats.”
This radical shift in operational concept allows for large-scale, early defensive launches at extraordinarily low cost, increasing redundancy for higher probability of lethality and enhancing the ability to simultaneously engage many targets.
“Roadrunner has been tried and tested in the toughest and some of the most complicated operational environments around the world. Being significantly cheaper than exquisite missile systems, Roadrunner enables warfighters to cost effectively deal with the rapidly evolving UAS threat environment,” Goodrich said.
The Roadrunner-M variant is a high-explosive interceptor variant of Roadrunner built for ground-based air defence that can rapidly launch, identify, intercept, and destroy a wide variety of aerial threats – or be safely recovered and relaunched at near-zero cost.
