Commanders at U.S. military bases are already seeing large numbers of incursions by small unmanned aerial systems. And those types of threats are expected to increase.

“We must continue to capture the lessons being learned in blood on active battlefields from Ukraine to the Middle East. We should pay special attention to the increasing importance of … the proliferation and effectiveness of drones,” Marine Commandant Gen. Eric Smith wrote in planning guidance issued last year. “We will continue to experiment with and invest in burgeoning capabilities that are defining the modern battlefield such as Ground Based Air Defenses, including Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems.”

In early 2024, the Corps released a solicitation for Installation-Counter Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (I-CsUAS). A few days ago, the Pentagon announced that Anduril beat out nine other offerors and snagged an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract worth a whopping $642 million to deliver, install and sustain a family of systems between now and March 2035.

“What they’ve selected here is not just a capability that is going to set them up for a future, but something that can deliver real capability to them today,” Kyle Erickson, general manager of air defense at Anduril, told DefenseScoop in an interview Thursday. “Our family of systems is deployed at scale with multiple services at multiple locations around the world. Has been in service for many years. It is proven, it is real, it’s in production. And so they’re picking something that is going to deliver value to them immediately.”

The contractor expects to field capabilities this year.

Erickson noted that the company has already provided a similar capability to U.S. Special Operations Command.

The family of systems that the Marine Corps will get under the new contract includes a variety of sensors and weapons to detect, identify, track and take down small UAS.

Erickson noted that Anduril will provide “an end-to-end capability” across the entire “kill chain,” to include all the fielding and sustainment support services.

“I can’t get into what we’re specifically going to provide for a specific installation in a given circumstance. Part of that is just due to the sensitivity of it, but partially also because different installations will have different priorities or threat profiles. And so I can’t talk about the specific case, but in the general case, you know the Marine Corps here is going to have access to our full family of systems, which includes multi-sensor detect, track, ID capability, including the radar and narrow-field-of-view infrared imaging capability in our Long Range Sensor Towers, the wide area infrared sensing with persistence in the Wisp sensor, as well as radio frequency sensing with the Pulsar capability and multiple defeat options, including low-collateral interceptors, like our Anvil interceptor, as well as the [electronic warfare] capabilities of the Pulsar,” he said. “So across that family of systems, you get multiple sensing modalities, multiple defeat or deter options to deploy flexibly depending on the threat profile or the authorities in a given situation.”

The company’s AI-enabled software platform, called Lattice, will be the centerpiece of the drone-killing architecture.

“Lattice is the software that stitches all this capability together. So it’s providing that command-and-control interface to the end users or operators so that they can command and control all the assets at a given installation from a single pane of glass. It’s also providing the autonomy capabilities on the different products themselves, so providing all the kinds of automated threat identification, sensor fusion, tracking — all the kinds of autonomy capabilities that help our operators to progress through the kill chain much more quickly and reduce the burden on them,” Erickson told DefenseScoop.

Anduril is taking a “software-first” approach to its family of systems, he said, which will facilitate future upgrades to the capabilities as new technologies become available.

Drone threat identification can vary depending on the sensor modality, Erickson noted.

“You might do some track classification based on the kinematics of a radar track, for example, the different characteristics of that track as measured by the radar with something like a narrow-field-of-view optic. Yu can run computer vision algorithms on the imagery and train those over time as you see more data with a radio frequency sensor. As you can imagine, you can do some amount of identification based on the particular signal and the analysis of that signal,” he explained. “And when you have these multiple modalities layered in together, then you have much greater capability of identifying threats.”

While autonomy is a key element of the capability set, Erickson said there is room for a human in the loop, which is important to the Marine Corps.

“The autonomy is really designed to invite the user at key decision points through the kill chain process. So the autonomy is doing a lot of the initial detection, tracking and identification. When a threat is identified, the end user is notified and alerted. They then have an opportunity to make a decision about what to do, whether that’s making a phone call or working through their [standard operating procedures], or even tasking an integrated effector against the threat. So there’s not going to be 100 percent automated, full execution of the kill chain — and that’s very much by design. You know our customers want to have a human operator on the loop for these critical decision points, and that’s a key element in our design approach as well,” he noted.

The $642 million I-CsUAS contract is focused on addressing threats posed by Group 1 and Group 2 drones — which are on the smaller end of the UAS spectrum — but Anduril also has capabilities that can defeat Group 3 systems, Erickson said.

Kamikaze drones, also known as one-way attack drones or loitering munitions, typically fall into the Group 3 category, and they’re a type of weapon that the Marines and the U.S. military writ large are concerned about and want to counter.

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The teaming initiative, which the companies are calling a “consortium,” is emerging as the firms separately continue to rack up big contract wins with the Pentagon.

For example, just this week, the Defense Department announced that its Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO) awarded Anduril a $100 million other transaction agreement to scale its “edge data integration services capabilities” for the DOD. The company is also heavily involved in the Pentagon’s Replicator initiative, which aims to field thousands of drones and counter-drone systems to counter China’s military buildup in the Indo-Pacific.

Earlier this year, Palantir landed a $480 million contract award for its Maven Smart System, which is expected to give U.S. military combatant commands expanded access to data integration and artificial intelligence tools to aid battlespace awareness and targeting. The company also won a $178 million deal with the Army for the next phase of its Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) ground station program, which has been touted as the “first AI-defined vehicle.”

The Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit in April announced that it awarded deals to Anduril and Palantir to develop software system integration architectures that could aid the Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle program.

Looking ahead, by pairing some of their respective capabilities via their new partnership announced Friday, the contractors aim to address two key challenges for the U.S. military: data readiness and processing data at scale, according to a joint press release.

“Our goal is to deliver the technological infrastructure, from the edge to the enterprise, that can enable our government and industry partners to transform America’s world-leading AI advancements into next-generation military and national security capabilities,” the firms stated in the release.

“Most useful national security data — government data that are collected and created by sensors, vehicles, weapons, and robots at the tactical edge — are not retained for AI training and algorithm development. Exabytes of defense data, indispensable for AI training and inferencing, are currently evaporating,” company officials wrote. “Even with national security data that are retained, no secure enterprise pipeline exists to turn that data into AI capabilities. U.S. companies are developing world-leading models but struggling to deploy them at scale with government partners for defense applications.”

To tackle these issues, executives plan to combine Anduril’s Lattice software platform and Menace family of expeditionary command, control, communications and computing (C4) platforms with Palantir capabilities such as its AI Platform (AIP) and Maven Smart System.

“Lattice connects directly with third-party defense systems at the edge, delivers autonomy to machine operations, securely distributes their information across a large-scale data mesh, and backhauls all tactical data into government enclaves for the purposes of AI training and inferencing. Menace devices are also purpose-built for the tactical edge, customized down to the silicon level for the unique requirements of national security operations in tactical environments — including, soon, next-generation encryption,” according to the release.

Integrating Palantir’s AIP with Anduril’s “edge capabilities” is being touted as a means of boosting the delivery of cloud-based data management and the development of artificial intelligence tools.

Migration to the cloud is a key component of the Pentagon’s IT modernization plans, as officials look to improve data-sharing, storage, handling and other tasks. The U.S. military also needs to leverage data to train its artificial intelligence systems.

Palantir’s AIP technologies will “enable the structuring, labeling, and preparation of defense data for AI training and development at all levels of classification, including Secure Compartmented Information (SCI) and Special Access Programs (SAP),” and help AI developers conduct “imitation and reinforcement learning,” according to the release issued Friday.

Via Palantir’s Maven Smart System, Pentagon officials aim to significantly grow the user base of technology that will enable the department to achieve a future warfighting construct known as Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2), with a goal of better connecting the platforms, sensors and data streams of the U.S. military and key international partners to improve decision-making, operational effectiveness and efficiencies.

The Maven Smart System “provides an enterprise mission command platform that integrates large-scale operational data and utilizes AI-based capabilities to improve and accelerate human decision-making across joint missions, such as intelligence and fires,” per Friday’s release. “Similarly, Anduril’s Lattice software platform provides an edge-based mission autonomy platform that integrates directly with robotic systems and utilizes AI-based capabilities to automate and orchestrate their conduct of joint missions, such as air defense and reconnaissance. Anduril and Palantir are joining these complementary systems together, providing a seamless operational capability from the edge to the enterprise that serves as a deployment platform for new AI applications that anyone can build. This platform is already in place and in use by Anduril and Palantir for their own corporate purposes and with government contracts that enables this work to begin immediately.”

Other industry partners may be invited to join the consortium in the future, the document noted.

Meanwhile, the forthcoming inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance next month could be a further boon for Palantir and Anduril, especially if it leads to an increase in defense spending for military modernization efforts.

“My big league support for Donald Trump is no secret,” Anduril founder Palmer Luckey wrote in a post on X in May.

Peter Thiel, who co-founded Palantir, has ties with JD Vance.

“The growth of our business is accelerating, and our financial performance is exceeding expectations as we meet an unwavering demand for the most advanced artificial intelligence technologies from our U.S. government and commercial customers,” Palantir CEO Alex Karp wrote in a letter to shareholders published Nov. 4, the day before the presidential election.

As of the morning of Dec. 6, Palantir’s stock has shot up more than 30% over the past month in the wake of Trump’s victory, according to Forbes.

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The work on the three-year production deal is estimated to be completed by November 2028. The production OTA was previously competed as a prototype other transaction, according to the DOD.

“The mesh is already operational across multiple services and combatant commands, delivering critical data that enables mission-relevant generative artificial intelligence (AI) solutions specifically tailored to the unique requirements of the warfighter. This agreement will accelerate the expansion of the mesh to increase access to decentralized, distributed and disconnected systems, and to power new insights and real-time decision making at the edge,” Anduril said in a press release.

Any U.S. military service or combatant command can leverage the new production OTA, according to the company.

The award comes as the Pentagon is pursuing an initiative known as Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2), which aims to more effectively and efficiently connect the sensors, shooters and data streams of the U.S. military services and key allies. The CDAO is working to enable that warfighting construct with artificial intelligence capabilities and other digital tools.

Anduril’s “tactical Edge Data Mesh” offering is enabled by the firm’s Lattice Mesh software platform, which can connect with and operate on a variety of sensors, weapons, platforms and other systems, according to the contractor.

The firm describes the tool as a “decentralized networking capability that seamlessly distributes critical data across platforms, domains, and partners by intelligently prioritizing data paths to ensure the most efficient flow of critical data.”

Other DOD components have awarded contracts to Anduril for Lattice-related capabilities recently. Just last month, the company announced that the Space Force’s acquisition arm had awarded the organization a nearly $100 million contract to upgrade the service’s Space Surveillance Network (SSN) with Lattice software to enhance autonomous processing and distribution of data from a vast network of military space sensors.

The deal with the CDAO announced Tuesday comes as the Defense Department is pursuing next-generation drones and counter-drone technologies via initiatives like Replicator.

Anduril is touting Lattice as an enabler of “autonomous battle networks.”

“Warfighters at the edge will be enabled to publish and subscribe to data in support of time sensitive operations or where large numbers of manned, unmanned and autonomous systems must collaborate in contested environments to advance the mission,” according to Anduril’s press release. “The extensibility of this [Lattice] system allows Anduril and CDAO to add integrations to support command and control of autonomous systems and counter-autonomous systems.”

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IVAS has been one of the Army’s highest-priority modernization initiatives, with Microsoft as the prime contractor. The system — which includes ruggedized headgear and software with night-vision, thermal sensing and augmented reality capabilities, among others — was inspired by the company’s HoloLens 2 device. The service aims to use the equipment for both training and battlefield operations for dismounted troops. The program could be worth as much as $21.9 billion if it comes to full fruition.

On Thursday, Anduril announced that its Lattice solution has been incorporated into the system. Lattice can be employed as a situational awareness tool that uses capabilities such as AI, computer vision, edge computing and sensor fusion to detect, track and classify objects of interest for users, according to a product description.

“Soldiers wearing Lattice-enabled IVAS headsets are rapidly warned of incoming autonomously-detected airborne threats, enhancing survivability in complex, contested environments. The integration of Anduril’s systems, alongside third-party technologies, is set to propel the IVAS mission capabilities forward,” Anduril officials stated in a press release.

The Army has been rolling out different variants of IVAS to soldiers for experimentation and to get their feedback on the technology. The latest iteration developed by Microsoft is known as IVAS 1.2.

An Anduril spokesperson told DefenseScoop that that Lattice has been integrated with IVAS 1.1 and IVAS 1.2 systems.

“We are proud of the collaborative progress on this effort,” the spokesperson said.

In a statement, company co-founder Palmer Luckey said the project is his “top priority” at the organization, which is also working on other high-profile Pentagon initiatives such as the Air Force’s collaborative combat aircraft program and Replicator.

“It’s one of the Army’s most critical programs being fielded in the near future, with the goal of getting the right data to the right people at the right time,” he said about IVAS. “This is Anduril’s bread and butter, and we’ve been building the backbone for this for years.”

Before co-founding Anduril, Luckey launched Oculus VR, the startup known for its commercial virtual reality headset which went on to be acquired by Facebook.

Microsoft had already been making enhancements to IVAS equipment and software, some of which were prompted by soldier complaints about early versions.

“IVAS is more than the sum of its parts. Through integration across existing and new software and sensors, IVAS brings a full picture of the battlefield to every soldier, enabling safer and more effective operations. Our collaboration with Anduril to integrate their suite of critical sensors, along with their groundbreaking Lattice system into IVAS, demonstrates the transformative capability of this fighting goggle and will allow us to further expand the impact IVAS will have for every U.S. soldier,” Robin Seiler, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of mixed reality, said in a statement.

The Army requested $255 million from Congress for fiscal 2025 to buy more IVAS systems — including 3,162 IVAS 1.2 heads-up-display platforms — as well as $98 million for research, development, test and evaluation related to the technology.

The service’s R&D plans for this year included developing software for IVAS “that enables soldiers to intuitively relay reconnaissance intent to a team of autonomous sensors and quickly interpret feedback from the systems and make targeting decisions,” according to budget justification documents. For 2025, it aims to make improvements related to the heads-up-display design, thermal and low-light sensors, IVAS extensibility, form factor, reliability, reducing weight, and developing AI data integration and applications.

The plan was to transition IVAS to a major capability acquisition pathway no later than October 2025.

However, Army acquisition chief Doug Bush recently said the service hasn’t decided whether Microsoft will remain the prime contractor for the program as officials consider a potential next stage of the modernization effort, which some have dubbed “IVAS Next.”

“Haven’t determined that yet,” Bush told reporters during a roundtable earlier this month. “We are … working with [IVAS] 1.2 going through a series of evaluations to gain knowledge about whether it is good enough to go to production. So that’s the purpose of doing all that testing is to gain confidence and go, ‘Yes, this is ready to go to production and field to operational units.’ So that’s what we’re doing right now. The potential, though, for future competition is there because, you know, I think there’s so many companies in this space and there’s so much dynamic tech here, that we certainly need to preserve the option of having a competition in the future if other people come with good solutions. … The decision hasn’t been made yet to, for sure, go that route, but we’re setting conditions to where, if we decide to, we can.”

“In the meantime, Microsoft is doing a good job with its current contract. The evaluations are going broadly pretty well. But … we’re working with prototypes, we’re learning the good and the bad. So we’re still hoping to get there. I think the broad goal of bringing this kind of wearable tech in a military form factor to infantry units to make them more effective, is something everyone in the Army, almost everyone, agrees on. How do we get there is the issue — is this exact version of IVAS that version, or do we need another spin of development?” he said.

DefenseScoop asked Anduril officials if the company was considering competing as a prime contractor for IVAS Next.

“We’re closely following the developments around IVAS-next and are confident that the combined strengths of Anduril and Microsoft can deliver a solution that enhances both soldier survivability and lethality. We will continue to monitor IVAS-next, and as always, we are committed to positioning ourselves to do what’s best for the warfighter, staying true to our mission of delivering the most effective solutions,” an Anduril spokesperson said.

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