Palmer Luckey’s Anduril debuts autonomous attack drone in new video

Palmer Luckey’s Anduril debuted a new AI-powered attack drone that can fit inside a backpack.

Palmer Luckey’s defense tech company debuted a new AI-powered attack drone that it says can fit inside a backpack.

Anduril Industries, cofounded in 2017 by Oculus founder Luckey, unveiled its Bolt and Bolt-M drones in a YouTube video on Thursday.

The video shows the lightweight drones — which it says use AI to track targets — in action. The Bolt drone, seen in the video hovering above targets, is meant to use AI to autonomously track targets.

The Bolt M drone, meanwhile, is capable of striking targets. The video shows the drone rapidly falling from the sky to deliver a three-pound explosive near a truck, which causes the drone to self-destruct in the air and damage the truck.

Anduril did not immediately return a request for comment from B-17 about the Bolt and Bolt-M drone reveal.

The drones weigh about 15 pounds and can be disassembled and carried inside a backpack, according to the video. Soldiers will only need around five minutes to assemble and launch them from anywhere, the company says in the video.

Chris Brose, the company’s chief strategy officer, told DefenseScoop that the Bolt-M is designed so that a “single operator can carry it, set it up, launch it, and use it.” The company plans to deliver an undisclosed number of the drones to the Marine Corps over the next six months, Brose told the outlet.

Anduril has already shown it can win military contracts. In April, Anduril announced it won a contract from the US Air Force to design and test autonomous fighter jets.

The same month, the Department of Defense announced $249 million in contracts for the companies Anduril, AeroVironment, and Teledyne FLIR to provide “kamikaze drones,” according to DefenseScoop. The company secured $6.5 million through its contract for the Bolt-M drone, according to DefenseScoop.

This month, Anduril also announced that it secured a nearly $250 million contract with the Department of Defense to create 500 Roadrunner drones. Andruril’s Roadrunner is an AI-powered, unmanned drone designed to “rapidly intercept and neutralize larger” unmanned aircraft, the company said in a release.

Luckey founded Anduril after he was fired from Meta in 2016 following news of his donation to a pro-Donald Trump group. Meta has denied that Luckey’s departure had anything to do with his politics.