South California-based Anduril Industries unveiled on October 10 the Bolt family of man-packable, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) Autonomous Air Vehicles (AAVs) that deliver simple and flexible capability for various missions.
The VTOL is already on order under the US Marine Corps Organic Precision Fires-Light (OPF-L) program, which the service is currently evaluating.
The Marines will test the Bolt over the next six months to determine its potential acquisition and fielding in fiscal year 2025.
The base configuration Bolt is designed for man-packable ISR and search and rescue.
Bolt-M, the munition variant of Bolt, is designed to arm any ground force with lethal precision firepower. It leverages onboard software to automate the flight behaviors required to track and strike a target accurately while providing human operators with four simple decisions: where to look, what to follow, how to engage, and when to strike.
Modern conflicts have demonstrated how lightweight, man-portable tactical loitering munitions can provide an asymmetric advantage to dismounted forces by leveraging readily available commercial drone technology to reduce costs and increase production capacity.
While effective, first-person view (FPV) drones require highly skilled pilots to find and strike targets successfully, this places a significant cognitive burden on operators and creates a need for highly specialized training.
Modern ground forces need large numbers of low-cost, lightweight, man-portable, and reliable loitering munitions capable of delivering outsized performance without requiring specialized operators.
That is precisely what Bolt-M delivers.
To read more, click here.