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.
Man-packable VTOL
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.
Designed for ease of operation and rapid deployment in a man-portable package, Bolt-M offers autonomous waypoint navigation and target-agnostic object tracking, customizable standoff distances, and engagement modalities, more than 40 minutes of endurance, and 20 kilometers of range to extend the reach of dismounted forces.
With up to three pounds of munition payload capacity, Bolt-M delivers devastating effects against static or moving ground-based targets, including light vehicles, dismounted personnel, trenches, and more.
AI-enabled precision firepower
Powered and controlled by a tactical version of Anduril’s Lattice software platform, Bolt-M is equipped with advanced onboard AI/ML software to automate the flight behaviors required to find, track, and strike dynamic targets.
With autonomous waypoint navigation that can be modified as needed through a simple touchscreen interface, Bolt-M allows operators to manage complex tasks rather than focusing on basic navigation.
Bolt-M is designed to allow operators to adapt to rapidly evolving battlefield conditions.
The VTOL offers target-agnostic object tracking. An operator can draw a bounding box around any visual target for Bolt-M to follow, allowing warfighters to respond to new and previously unseen threats in real-time.
Once a target is identified in Lattice, an operator can specify a standoff position for Bolt-M to maintain, tasking the system to stalk the target from beyond the visual or acoustic detection range even as the target moves and is occluded.
When it’s time to strike, an operator can define the engagement angle to ensure the most effective strike. At the same time, onboard vision and guidance algorithms maintain terminal guidance even if connectivity is lost with the operator.
As a software-defined capability, the Bolt family of systems both benefits from and contributes to the broader ecosystem of capabilities integrated through Lattice, sharing sensor, targeting, and other data across Anduril and third-party platforms to provide commanders with a comprehensive picture of the battlespace and take action accordingly.
Strike anytime, anywhere
The Bolt VTOL’s lightweight and small form factor means that any dismounted operator can easily add Bolt or Bolt-M to their equipment loadout.
Bolt-M can be unpacked and airborne in under five minutes, providing warfighters with on-demand precision firepower at a moment’s notice.
Bolt is designed to operate in any environment. As a VTOL AAV, It does not require any dedicated launch equipment and can be easily launched in congested environments.
With an onboard camera that allows the operator to toggle between EO and IR camera modes, Bolt can stalk targets at extended ranges in both day and nighttime operations.
The Bolt family of systems is the latest example of how Anduril transforms defense capabilities in the US and its allies with software and hardware.
From Ghost-X to Altius and beyond, Anduril continues to rapidly develop, iterate on, and deliver the expeditionary capabilities that warfighters need on timelines relevant to the fight.
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