An Anduril Industries kamikaze drone capable of carrying a warhead of 33 pounds (15 kilograms) destroyed multiple targets in a live-fire test last year, the company announced.
ALTIUS-700M’s “flawless” demonstration in the September test spanned six missions, from launch to strike, the California-based firm wrote.
An accompanying video shows the drone blasting off from a ground launcher and taking to the sky before crashing into a mock SA-17 surface-to-air missile system, generating a large fireball.
The drone’s maiden test with a live warhead followed trials of subsystems and inert systems.
All objectives were achieved in the test, proving the system’s accuracy and efficacy, the defense tech firm said.
Features
The ALTIUS family’s latest offering comes with an “industry-leading loitering time, extended range, and modular and open hardware and software architectures,” the company claimed.
It features a range of 100 miles (161 kilometers), a flight time of 75 minutes, and a warhead comparable to an AGM-114 Hellfire missile.
“With significant payload mass, high terminal velocity, and optional delayed fuze payload configurations, 700M can easily penetrate target walls to deliver maximum effect on armored targets,” Anduril said.
It can be deployed from air, ground or sea, and can be configured to perform “intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting, communications relay, cyber warfare, or kinetic strike.”