Anduril Industries

Anduril Industries, Inc. is an American defense technology company that specializes in advanced autonomous systems. It was founded in 2017 by inventor Palmer Luckey with investors and founders associated with Palantir and SpaceX. Anduril aims to sell technology to the U.S. Department of Defense, including artificial intelligence and robotics. Anduril's major products include unmanned aerial systems (UAS), counter-UAS (CUAS), semi-portable autonomous surveillance systems, and networked command and control software.

Background
Joshua Brustein of Bloomberg Businessweek credits Palantir Technologies, a data analytics company that contracts with intelligence agencies, for helping usher in more open government relations with startups for military contracts. Palantir sued the U.S. Army in 2016 "for refusing to consider it for a large intelligence contract", and, after winning the case, won the contract at a value of up to $800 million.

Like SpaceX, the only other "defense unicorn", a startup valued over $1 billion, Anduril was founded with private capital. Like Palantir, SpaceX had sued the U.S. Air Force in 2014 for "the right to compete", after United Launch Alliance (ULA) had been awarded sole-source launch contracts. In 2015, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter took measures to send more government contracts to "nontraditional" defense companies.

History
Anduril Industries is named for Andúril, the fictional sword of Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings. Translated from the novels' constructed language Quenya, the name means Flame of the West.

Pre-founding (investor meetups)
In June 2014, Palmer Luckey, the creator of the virtual reality headset Oculus Rift, attended a retreat on Sonora Island, British Columbia, hosted by Founders Fund, an early Oculus investor. Luckey met Trae Stephens, 30, who had recently been persuaded to leave Palantir and join Founders Fund by its leader, Peter Thiel. Luckey and Stephens discovered a shared interest in seeking defense contracts with companies built like tech startups. "Stephens found it ridiculous that almost no venture-backed companies worked closely with the government; with its billions of dollars to spend", aside from Palantir and SpaceX. Founders Fund was also an early SpaceX investor. "Stephens' goal was to fund a company to join that duo", but found it difficult to accomplish in Silicon Valley.

In 2015, the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security opened Silicon Valley offices. "In 2017, as part of an initiative that had begun the previous year, the Defense Department also unveiled the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team, known as Project Maven, to harness the latest AI research into battlefield technology, starting with a project to improve image recognition for drones operating in the Middle East." The Intercept says this environment "provided a unique entry point for Anduril". Luckey credits Raj Shah, a former Defense Innovation Unit director, and others for enabling commercial/military relations.

The idea for a software startup focused on "high-tech" military applications was raised by Stephens and some of his colleagues at Palantir. After the 2016 presidential election, Stephens was appointed to the Defense transition team and later joined the Defense Innovation Board, a "central part" of Carter's effort. Stephens, who was also looking for a defense startup Founders Fund could invest in, began to recruit employees for Anduril alongside Luckey, who was looking to make use of the money he obtained from selling Oculus VR to Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion.

Luckey left Facebook in March 2017, alleging he had been fired for his pro-Trump beliefs, which Facebook denies. Stephens and Luckey recruited employees from Palantir and Oculus, and planned to employ Luckey's developmental approach with the Oculus headset to combine low-cost hardware components with sophisticated software. Luckey thought this would be easy because, he said, "the defense industry has been stagnant for decades".

Since 2017
Anduril was incorporated in June 2017 and seeded by Founders Fund. There were at least four founders: Stephens, Luckey, Matt Grimm, and Joe Chen. Brian Singerman led a seed funding round. Luckey, Stephens, and Grimm pitched their company to the directors of Palantir. One of them, Brian Schimpf, decided to join, and became the fifth co-founder (and CEO)."

In June 2017, Anduril executives contacted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) California office to pitch low-cost wide-ranging border security. The DHS introduced them to border officials. The San Diego CBP office eventually paid Anduril to test a new border system.

In June 2018, Lattice surveillance towers were being informally tested on a Texas rancher's private land. Lattice was operated remotely by an Anduril technician

In June 2019, the UK Royal Navy was paying Anduril to use Lattice as part of a modernization initiative. The Verge hypothesized that Lattice would be used for surveillance, and a data platform for ground troops.

In 2019, the advocacy group Mijente discovered a $13.5 million Marine Corps contract "to install Anduril systems at military bases in Japan and the United States, including one that abuts the U.S.-Mexico border." Anduril also has a contract with the UK Royal Marines.

In May 2020, Anduril announced an expansion office in Seattle, Washington.

In July 2020, CBP paid $25M to Anduril for some surveillance towers. In September 2020, Anduril received $36M from CBP for its surveillance towers. CBP planned to install 200 Anduril towers total by 2022. CBP had worked on some pilot programs with Anduril in Texas and San Diego beginning in 2018. In 2019, more towers were installed in CBP's San Diego sector. CBP ordered more for Texas, and started a new pilot program at Montana and Vermont border sites for a cold-weather tower variant.

In July 2020, CBP and Anduril entered a five-year contract to deploy sentry towers.

In October 2020, The Intercept reported that Google would be using their Google Cloud technology to help AI implementations by CBP's Innovation Team. It would be "used in conjunction with" technology employed by Anduril.

In February 2021, The Times reported that the Royal Marines had been testing the Ghost drone, for frontline use to provide video of targets.

In July 2021, the BBC reported that the Royal Navy had used Ghost drones in an autonomous drone test to provide live feeds of targets.

In April 2021, Anduril acquired Area-I, a company producing drones capable of being launched from larger aircraft. Area-I had previously contracted for U.S. government agencies like the Army, Air Force, Navy, and NASA. Area-I was an Atlanta-based technology startup, which developed surveillance drones for government clients. It was founded by aerospace researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and was funded largely through government contracts including SBIR. The acquisition deal was expected to result in Area-I initially operating as an independent subsidiary.

In June 2023, Anduril acquired rocket engine company Adranos, giving the company access to technology for developing solid rocket motors for missiles and space launch. In September 2023, Anduril acquired North Carolina-based autonomous aircraft developer, Blue Force Technologies.

In September 2023, Anduril engineers tested a live warhead on the Altius-700M. Anduril said that the "system was accurate and effective against the chosen target".

In January 2024, Anduril was one of five vendors contracted by the US Air Force for the development of collaborative combat aircraft.

In April 2024, the U.S. Army and Defense Innovation Unit selected Anduril Industries to develop a software framework, thought foundational to testing and deploying future robotic combat vehicle payloads.

Altius
Altius (Agile Launched, Tactically-Integrated Unmanned System) is a series of fixed-wing, tube-launched unmanned aerial vehicles developed by Area-I, an Atlanta-based subsidiary of Anduril acquired in April 2021. The Altius 600 is designed to accept a modular payload on the nose. It can be launched from numerous different launchers and platforms, including the C-130 aircraft, the UH-60 Blackhawks various ground vehicles, as well as larger mothership UAVs, including the MQ-1C Grey Eagle and Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie stealth UCAV.

The Altius is a component of the U.S. Army's Air-Launched Effects (ALE), and swarms of them can operate together in a mesh network. The Altius is designed to be low-cost and expendable, but can be recovered mid-flight with Flying Air Recovery System (FLARES).

Anvil
Anvil, also known as Interceptor, is an unmanned combat aerial vehicle quadrotor designed principally to attack other unmanned aerial vehicles. When launched, Anvil locates target drones using computer vision, and can be commanded to ram targets by its operator. The drone can reportedly reach speeds of up to 200 mph. Anduril is developing versions to attack larger targets like helicopters or cruise missiles. Anvil can be integrated into Anduril's Lattice system.

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the interceptor was conceptualized over a weekend, as a drone that could identify and ram hostile objects. After sending a video to the Pentagon of a working prototype, the U.S. military requested a small order for testing. Anduril publicly announced the drone in October 2019.

As of 2019, Anduril has produced the Anvil for the United States and United Kingdom militaries. Bloomberg Businessweek reported in October 2019 that Anduril had been contracted to deploy the drone to overseas combat zones. Anduril plans to market the drone to commercial oil and gas companies for policing "large, wide-open spaces".

A detonating version called the Anvil-M was unveiled in October 2023. It operates like the previous Anvil, but uses a fire-control module and munitions payload to destroy Group 1 and 2 UAS.

Dive-LD
Dive-LD is an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) designed by Boston-based Dive Technologies, which was acquired by Anduril in February 2022. It is intended for use in littoral and deep-water survey, inspection, and ISR. In May 2022, Anduril announced that the Royal Australian Navy signed a $100M contract to develop and build three Extra Large Autonomous Undersea Vehicles (XL-AUVs).

Dust
Dust is a small 4 lb ground-based sensor designed to detect people and objects in areas with limited line of sight, such as small corridors that nearby Sentry Towers cannot observe. The Dust is powered by an onboard battery providing two months of lifetime, or an external solar panel.

Ghost
The Ghost is an unmanned aerial vehicle. The drone is named "Ghost" because of its reportedly quiet acoustic signature and difficulty in being detected. The latest iteration is Ghost 4. Ghosts 1, 2, and 3 have been used in military operations. Information about them has not been publicly released.

The Ghost 4 was announced by Anduril in September 2020. Constructed using metal alloys and carbon fiber composites, it utilizes a traditional single-rotor helicopter design, which offers reduced noise, increased efficiency and higher payload compared to a multirotor design. The drone measures 8 ft long when fully assembled. It can be collapsed to 3 ft for transport in a backpack. Anduril claims a maximum flight time of 100 minutes, a cruise speed of 52 kn, a 35 lb payload capacity, and a charge time of 35 minutes. The drone can be remotely or autonomously piloted.

Machine learning and computer vision algorithms are used to identify and track targets. The drone can upload data to Anduril's Lattice system. The drone uses Nvidia processing units originally designed for self-driving cars. The drone was designed to use on-board processing chips, due to bandwidth limitations for communication links, and to enable radio silence, by operating Ghosts who can process imagery on their own without the need for a centralized analysis system that requires communication. An onboard camera provides a live feed for operators on the ground. Luckey claims it can track and image, in high-resolution, objects up to 2520 ft away.

The Ghost can perform multiple roles due to its five modular payload bays, such as utilizing laser weapons or detecting and tracking cruise missiles. Anduril claims that payloads can be swapped out within a matter of minutes. Multiple Ghosts can reportedly link up with each other, using a conventional rule-based system to form a 'swarm', to relay data amongst themselves to increase effective range to a Lattice station. The Ghost 4 is ruggedized to increase its weatherproofing. Its rotor system was 'overhauled' compared to Ghost 3.

Users of previous Ghost iterations include the United States Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection. The United States Department of Defense and the Ministry of Defence have used the Ghost 3. The Royal Navy has tested the Ghost for use on the frontline.

Lattice


Lattice is a software platform that can use artificial intelligence to classify objects by ingesting and fusing data from disparate sensors, including from Anduril's own platforms   and those of third parties. Lattice has been used to control Anduril equipment for national border and military base surveillance.

Anduril demonstrated Lattice in a September 2020 military exercise, simulating shooting down Russian cruise missiles in the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, as part of the United States Air Force's Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) program, which aims to reduce delays in command response time after initial data acquisition. During that exercise, Lattice ingested data from Air Force systems and missile detection towers to track potential missiles and alert its users to them. The system displayed a map of the area in a virtual reality headset from Oculus. Users could tag the missile as hostile, and Lattice would show a menu of potential response options.

Military clients access the system using a laptop or phone. Luckey has claimed that future versions of Lattice will also be accessed using augmented reality headsets.

Sentry towers can process data to detect people, animals, and vehicles, and has been used to alert U.S. border patrol agents.

Sentry Tower
The Sentry Tower is a 33 ft tall solar-powered portable surveillance tower. The Sentry contains a camera, communications antennae, radar, and thermal imaging equipment. The tower operates autonomously, and feeds data back into Anduril's Lattice system, which can classify moving objects and targets in the imagery. When disassembled, the Sentry can fit into a pickup truck, and can reportedly be re-assembled in under an hour. CBP says agents can set up individual systems at the border in under 2 hours. The Sentry Tower and associated systems such as Lattice have been referred to as a "virtual border wall" or "smart wall".

The U.S. government has been looking for electronics-based border security since the 1990s. They spent $429M on two unsuccessful development programs from 1997 to 2005. A third program named SBInet and run by the DHS started in the mid-2000s with the goal of creating a border wall. Boeing won a contract for the program in September 2006 for an estimated $7.6B. The system was initially rolled out along the Arizona border, but expansion was later halted. Plagued with cost overruns, missed deadlines, and other issues, the program was canceled in 2011 at a price tag of over $1 billion. Alan Bersin says the fault was partly pursuing a 'one-size-fits-all' approach, versus individually implementing systems for localized requirements. Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems had developed camera towers but its equipment was considered more expensive and less mobile than Anduril's. The Sentry tower's smaller footprint mitigated land-use issues near tribal land, private property, and other areas.

After founding Anduril, the company needed a saleable product (a "quick win"). The company's pitch deck to its initial investors had included 'perimeter security on a pole'. While Stephens was interested in developing the product for forward operating bases, Luckey thought it could be useable as border security for the U.S.-Mexico border. Some Anduril executives contacted a DHS office in California in June 2017, who put them in contact with border-patrol agents. Anduril quickly came up with a prototype. Schimpf and some Anduril employees took the prototype to a test-range. They trained software on open-source machine learning training datasets, to identify and distinguish humans from other objects in the imagery.

To image distant targets, Luckey proposed the use of an off-the-shelf infrared laser repurposed from a hair removal device as an illumination source in a manner akin to a photographic flash, allowing the Sentry Tower to capture high resolution images of distant targets. This was considered a cheaper alternative to using a thermal camera, which was expected to fare poorly in the environment.

Stephens called U.S. representative Will Hurd (R-TX), who helped arrange an informal test of three towers in early 2018 on a Texas rancher's land near the border. The towers led to 55 arrests and 982 lb of marijuana seized within 10 weeks of installation. An official test outside San Diego led to 10 interceptions within 12 days of installation.

Anduril has received a number of contracts from U.S. agencies to install Sentry towers:
 * CBP: Started in early 2018 with 4 towers for a pilot in San Diego County. They had 60 in operation in June 2020, with plans to expand to 200 towers by FY 2022.
 * 2019: A pilot program in Montana/Vermont for "cold-weather tower variant" and other border surveillance equipment.
 * In July 2020, CBP paid $25M to Anduril for some surveillance towers. In September 2020, Anduril received $36M from CBP for its surveillance towers.
 * July 15, 2019: A $13.5M contract with the US Marine Corps for Lattice/towers at 4 bases: "Marine Corps Base Camp Smedley D. Butler in Okinanawa, Japan; the Marine Corps Base Hawaii on the island of Oahu; the Marine Corps Air Station Yuma in Arizona; and the Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan".
 * July 2020: A DHS contract to expand its virtual border wall program, including Anduril towers, worth up to $250m overall.

Sentry (firefighting vehicle)
The Sentry is a proposed autonomous firefighting vehicle, which would repurpose an armored personnel carrier to carry water instead. The vehicle was developed in a warehouse in Oakland, California by special effects expert and former MythBusters co-host Jamie Hyneman, who was employed as a subcontractor of Anduril.

Fury
Originally developed and manufactured by Blue Force Technologies, which Anduril acquired in 2023, Fury is a long-range, subsonic, stealthy military drone with 17 ft wingspan suited for surveillance and combat operations. Anduril's Fury was selected alongside General Atomics to compete for the first increment of the U.S. Air Force's Collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) program in April 2024.

Roadrunner
The Roadrunner is a 6 ft-long twin turbojet-powered delta-winged craft capable of high subsonic speeds and extreme maneuverability. Company officials describe it as somewhere between an autonomous drone and a reusable missile. The basic version can be fitted with modular payloads such as intelligence and reconnaissance sensors. The Roadrunner-M has an explosive warhead to intercept UAS, cruise missiles, and manned aircraft. Both models can take off and land vertically from a dedicated container, and the munition version can be recovered if not detonated. Although specifications are not known, it is purported to have three times the warhead payload, three times the maneuverability under g-forces, and 10 times the one-way range of comparable air vehicles.

Anduril revealed the Roadrunner in December 2023, saying that it had been in development for two years, and that they were about to begin low-rate production for an order of "hundreds of units" from a U.S. customer. A single unit costs "in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars" but the price is expected to drop as more get produced. The name Roadrunner was chosen because it is seen as a competitor to the RTX Corporation Coyote Block 2, in reference to the Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoon characters.

Advanced Battle Management System / Joint All-Domain Command & Control
In 2020, Anduril was one of more than 50 companies selected by the U.S. Air Force to help develop the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) under a contract worth up to $950 million. ABMS is a digital architecture system, a battlefield management system, designed to connect data across a variety of sources and weapons, including "jets, drones, ships and soldiers" The task is difficult due to the lack of data interoperability. For example, the F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters were designed with incompatible tactical datalinks. ABMS is part of Pentagon's Joint All-Domain Command & Control (JADC2), which aims to network all military assets into a single data-sharing infrastructure.

Project Maven
In March 2019, The Intercept reported that Anduril had won a contract with the Pentagon under Project Maven, an initiative that started in 2018 widely intended to use AI for military purposes.

Ghost Shark
Anduril Industries signed a contract with the Royal Australian Navy and the Defence Science and Technology Group in May 2022. Under this contract the company is required to produce three prototype autonomous submarines over three years. It is intended for a design that is suitable for manufacturing to be ready by mid-2025. The submarines were named the 'Ghost Shark' in December 2022.

Development ethos
Founder Palmer Luckey aims to replicate a high-tech startup in the traditionally slower-pace defense industry. Anduril has a stated goal of helping to modernize the militaries of US and its allies, in the face of "strategic adversaries", including Russia and China.

According to Wired, Anduril uses Silicon Valley-style development schemes, pre-emptively developing products for potential military markets before the Pentagon has expressed a request to purchase them. The company attempts to utilize commercial technologies such as AI and VR for faster iteration.

Military relations
Some employees of prominent technology companies have publicly opposed their employers' contracts with military clients, including Google and Microsoft. There has been a controversy around AI ethics by researchers, with many seeking autonomous weapons bans. To counter this, the Pentagon has introduced AI ethics guidelines. Tech companies have had employees protest against possible deals with the government.

According to Anduril's chairman, Trae Stephens, the company is upfront about its military connections and weapons development, unlike other technology companies which seek to downplay their military involvement. The company has "unapologetically" expressed its mission, where its engineers are "openly interested" in supporting the U.S. military.

Investor Peter Thiel believes that tech companies should work with the U.S. Government, and less with its rivals, believing there to be an arms race that the U.S. was losing. Luckey has said he trusts the U.S. government and military to obey their ethical guidelines."

Funding
In a September 2019 funding round, Anduril secured US$120M in funding from various venture capital firms, including Founders Fund, General Catalyst, and Andreessen Horowitz. According to investors, the company was valued at over US$1 billion at the time, a four-fold increase from its 2018 valuation. NBC reported that 8VC and Lux Capital are investors. As of October 2019, Anduril makes 1× CBP, 2× military revenue.

In July 2020, The Washington Post reported that Anduril received US$200M in funding from venture capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz and Founders Fund for U.S. military projects. A company representative said the company's valuation increased to US$2billion. The Post reported that Anduril has received around US$28M for unclassified contracts, a small amount in the defense industry. In July 2020, Anduril's annual revenue was estimated at US$100M.

In June 2021, Anduril announced they had obtained US$450M in Series D funding from Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Lux Capital, Valor Equity Partners, and D1 Capital Partners. According to the company, this increased their valuation to $4.6bn, double their valuation in July 2020. The funding round was led by investor and entrepreneur Elad Gil.

Political affiliations
Anduril helped provide data/analysis for U.S. House Representative Will Hurd to introduce the "Secure Miles with All Resources and Technology Act" bill in the 2017 House session, which would fund the development of surveillance equipment to monitor the US-Mexico border.

Locations
Anduril is currently headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, with satellite offices in Boston, Seattle, Washington, D.C., London, and Sydney. The company chose to base themselves initially in Irvine due to its proximity to military bases and to distance themselves from Silicon Valley, which has been more cautious about working for the military. According to co-founder and COO Matt Grimm, Anduril's work requires in-person interaction due to the necessities of using industrial equipment to build their products, security requirements for classified contracts, and in-person demonstrations for potential clients; this is contrasted against many companies which have begun transitioning to remote-office work.

In July 2018, Anduril leased a 155000 sqft building next to John Wayne Airport, near Irvine. The Los Angeles Business Journal reported that the lease was the largest in Orange County that year as of July. Anduril leased a 640000 sqft campus in Costa Mesa, California, in February 2021. Called "The Press" by the company, the new corporate campus was originally home to the Orange County bureau and printing press of the Los Angeles Times starting in 1968. The owner of the Times sold the site in 2017.

Due to its original newspaper use, the Press contains a rail line and a gas station. The rail line will be converted to a company park and the gas station into a coffee shop. The existing complex is 450000 sqft. An additional 190000 sqft expansion west of the complex will serve as Anduril's research and development hub and a parking garage. Two floors will be added inside part of the existing complex. The entire redesign will cost US$200M. As of February 2021, 144000 sqft of the complex is available for use, while the new expansion will be completed by Q3 2022. Anduril plans to fully move into its Costa Mesa location in 2022. The lease is the largest in Costa Mesa's history and the largest in Orange County's last 15 years, by size.

The relocation is expected to boost Costa Mesa's economy, whose government has struggled with budget shortfalls due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company operates a testing range near Camp Pendleton.

Employment
In June 2019, Anduril had around 90 employees. The company had around 130 employees in October 2019. In February 2021, around 400 employees were at its headquarters, plus satellite offices. In February 2021, The Times reported that Anduril had been recruiting former UK military personnel.

Criticism and controversies
Anduril has been called "Tech's Most Controversial Startup." Autonomous weapons have been considered controversial in Silicon Valley, but Anduril aggressively courts business from the government and military.

Anduril provides autonomous sentry towers used by US Customs and Border Patrol to surveil the southern US border, and the use of its products by CBP has been criticized by immigration activists. However, the towers have also been billed as part of a "Smart Wall", a more sustainable and economical alternative to a fixed border wall.