Anduril’s Roadrunner drone offers affordable, reusable air defense options

Fast-moving California defense startup Anduril has announced the release of a new type of aircraft called Roadrunner, which is situated somewhere between a drone and missile and designed to address the kind of military and economic dilemmas that cash-strapped countries like Ukraine face in responding to aerial attacks.

In unveiling its Roadrunner system, Costa Mesa-based Anduril is providing future clients with a jet-propelled, payload-adaptable drone for intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR) missions. Drawing from artificial intelligence built into its operational software, the munitions-equipped Roadrunner-M variant can also be used as a smart missile to both identify and destroy hostile incoming craft.

The multi-use, recoverable conception of Roadrunner drones is rooted in lessons Anduril learned in observing attacks on US forces in the Middle East in recent years, as well as Ukraine’s defense of UAV and missile strikes by Russia.

To wit, the difficult decisions involved in responding to what are urgent incoming aerial threats posed by military grade or repurposed enterprise and consumer UAVs; yet avoiding use of extremely expensive or limited defense assets in neutralizing those often cheap enemy craft.

With Roadrunner-M, Anduril says response becomes easy and automatic. The ready-to-launch drone is an inexpensive but extremely effective vertical takeoff and landing choice. It is deployable from nearly anywhere to search and neutralize enemy attack vehicles, and will return for redeployment whenever its missions don’t end in destruction.

“Roadrunner-M can take off, follow, and intercept distant targets at the first hint of danger, giving operators more information and time to assess the target and rules of engagement,” Anduril’s release on its jet-powered drone said. “If there is no need to destroy the target, Roadrunner-M can simply return to base and land at a pre-designated location for immediate refueling and reuse.”

Whether outfitted with sensors for ISR missions, or equipped with a warhead as a quasi-loitering munition, tail-sitting Roadrunner drones can be launched by soldiers in the field or from protective upright nests. Andruil says the affordable costs of the platform will reduce pressure on officials like those in Ukraine who – in addition to protecting fighters and civilians from incoming air strikes – must try to preserve chronically low air defense assets against an abundance of cheaply-made enemy craft. 

On other occasions, Anduril notes, its new system will allow similarly strapped forces to fire affordable Roadrunner craft to put far more expensive aircraft, missiles, sophisticated UAVs, and even ground vehicles like tanks out of commission. 

In creating and producing the solution in record time, Anduril relied on the logic of its 2019 founding objectives of providing defense clients with highly effective, cutting-edge, yet affordable aerial systems with the speed of a startup.

“Roadrunner went from a napkin sketch to an operationally validated and fieldable solution in less than two years, which is much faster than most traditional defense contractor timelines,” the company’s release notes. “(It) can rapidly identify, intercept and destroy an array of aerial threats (that) are up to 100 times more expensive, or be recovered and reused at near-zero cost.”