The Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded a five-year, $99 million contract to California-based defense technology firm Anduril Industries for the purchase of its counter-drone system.
The DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) granted the company a Production Other Transaction (P-OT) Agreement to install and manage its family of Counter Unmanned Aircraft System (C-UAS) solutions for various military services.
Unlike traditional contracts, P-OT allows end-users to provide a broad outline of the product they need, according to Breaking Defense. The developer then proposes a solution based on the customer’s request.
Anduril’s C-UAS Solutions
Describing the system, Anduril Industries said that it utilizes a “fusion of multiple sensors” to “autonomously detect, classify, and track targets, alerting operators to threats and allowing options for mitigation or engagement.”
Anduril co-founder and CEO Brian Schimpf explained further: “Given the near-continuous evolution of this particular threat [UAS] and the urgency to field solutions that can also be routinely modernized to address it, we worked closely with DIU over the last year and a half to transition from prototype to production and quickly scale proven and fieldable solutions.”
Effective Against a Range of UAS
The system has demonstrated, during assessments, its effectiveness against various unmanned aerial system (UAS) threats,” ranging from hobby drones to those flown by state actors, and in a variety of scenarios, including against multiple UAS threats simultaneously.”
“This milestone for Anduril and DIU demonstrates that by running meritocratic test events and competitions that focus on capabilities, and rewarding the best systems, DOD can bring the country’s engineering resources to bear on critical national security issues,” Schimpf concluded.
