Startup Anduril presents a jet fighter that “lands like a Falcon 9”
The Roadrunner is a modular autonomous air vehicle with autonomous vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) and a twin “low-cost” jet engine.
Additionally, Anduril, a defense technology startup, has developed a variant of the Roadrunner-Munition or Roadrunner-M, a so-called “high explosive interceptor” that can carry a warhead and destroy threats from the air.
The Roadrunner is unusual in both its appearance and capabilities: it can take off, pursue and destroy targets; and if there is no need for interception, the vehicle will maneuver back to the base for refueling and reuse.
As Chris Brose, Head of Strategy at Anduril, put it in a recent interview:
“We’ve basically created a jet fighter that lands like a Falcon 9.”
According to Brose, this product was created in response to the growth of high-speed autonomous aircraft weapons that can be produced in large volumes and at very low cost. Unlike other modern solutions and the outdated missile systems that preceded them, the Roadrunner-M can also be reused.
“In my opinion, this is the first recoverable weapon that has ever been used,” said Brose. “It’s a very cool thing. The ability to deploy and then recover it and reuse it if you’re not actually using it in an operation to destroy another drone completely changes the way operators work. Today, they have a limited number of interceptors, and if they decide to push the button, they don’t get the weapon back.”
According to Anduril, there are several other significant improvements over the old systems: faster launch and takeoff times, three times the payload, ten times the range, and three times the maneuverability.
Like the rest of the Anduril family, the Roadrunner-M can be managed using Lattice, the company’s AI-powered management and control software, or integrated into other architectures.
Another big advantage for the operator is that if there is a fast-moving threat, Roadrunner can immediately start, display it, and then get a signal whether to intervene. Since the product can be reused and refurbished, operators can act without fear of losing an expensive asset.
Brose said that the company has been working with an unnamed partner from the US government since the development of the Roadrunner began about two years ago.
“National defense often, and rightly so, faces stereotypical perceptions of being very heavy, very slow, very unimaginative, very uninteresting,” said Brose. “I think that as a company, Anduril is the opposite of that.”
