Anduril makes a big splash in Ohio with Arsenal 1’s ‘hyperscale’ drone factory

Back in August, disruptive defense technology company Anduril announced it had raised $1.5 billion specifically to build an “ultra-large manufacturing facility” that would produce “orders of magnitude” more drones than current processes. did. Their grand plan was to “rebuild the arsenal of democracy.”

Now, that vision is becoming a concrete reality, with the announcement today of a huge new high-tech development in Ohio, a 5 million square foot facility named Arsenal 1, which will create more than 4,000 new jobs. will be created.

Anduril’s high-tech arsenal

The new facility was announced by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, Lt. Governor Jon Husted and JobsOhio, and will be the largest new project in Ohio history by number of employees.

The facility will be built on 500 acres in Pickaway County near Rickenbacker International Airport. Anduril selected the region based on its available workforce and supportive business environment and plans to invest more than $900 million.

It may not look much like a traditional aerospace manufacturing plant. Anduril emphasizes the need for “software-defined production.” This takes current production methods to a new level, which are already highly data-centric and use digital twins to perform analysis, design, modeling, simulation, production, and management and ordering of materials and components. You will be pulled up.

Flexibility is key. When new requirements are identified, software-defined production must be able to seamlessly incorporate them into existing production processes. Rather than defining and testing for months or years, changes should occur almost simultaneously. One of the key lessons of the Ukraine conflict is the speed of development, which many say is a cycle of weeks between generations, and the United States needs to keep up with this in future conflicts. be.

Anduril is passionate about AI. The company’s Lattice platform allows multiple types of drones, sensors, and other systems to be networked together to respond and react at machine speed. AI can permeate and enable the entire process.

Expect to see a lot of additive manufacturing and robotics in action from day one at the Arsenal. The factory is designed to produce tens of thousands of drones per year. Initially, these would likely be based on Anduril’s current product range, the Fury as an autonomous jet fighter that operates in parallel with manned platforms, the Roadrunner as a one-way interceptor and attack drone, and the Barracuda as a long-range attack drone or cruiser with range. It will be a family of missiles. 100-500 miles.

But an assembly line in the traditional sense is unlikely to exist. Software-defined manufacturing should allow factories to quickly switch from producing one type of system to another.

Importantly, Anduril is not entirely committed to selling the Pentagon the swarm of small drones that Elon Musk believes will replace manned jets. That may be the future, but it’s too big of a leap for the current Pentagon culture. Instead, Anduril offers an unmanned alternative similar in capabilities to those currently used by the military, but promises to be able to deliver much greater mass at a much lower cost.

So the Air Force’s small number of F-22 fighters (only 165 in active duty) can accompany Fury squadrons, which literally take flak and absorb casualties. Save the rare Tomahawk missile magazines for the most high-value targets, and allow the barracuda herd to tackle all other targets.

Replicator records

Anduril’s bold new investment comes just as we are looking at the report card for the Department of Defense’s Replicator initiative. The initiative is inspired by developments in Ukraine and aims to provide the military with large numbers of low-cost drones at high speeds, with delivery expected in 2018. 24 months.”

But as this week’s DefenseNews article points out, the Replicator’s future is in some doubt. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, who has championed replicators and fought tirelessly to win funding and recognition, is scheduled to retire on January 20th.

The Department of Defense has announced several systems acquired via replicators that combine underwater vehicles with small unmanned aerial vehicles, particularly unidirectional attack drones. But of the roughly 3,000 systems ordered, more than half will be Switchblade 600 attack drones made by California-based AeroVironment.

The SwitchBlade 600 appears to be a very effective design and has been successfully used in Ukraine. We covered its launch in 2020. This is more of a legacy system from a traditional supplier (the US military has been using the early SwitchBlade 300 since 2012) than the 3D printed AI-enabled drones that Anduril is promoting.

The high price of the Switchblade 600, around $200,000 per drone, is one reason why only a few thousand units have been purchased. And point out why new technologies and economies of scale are needed.

Other countries’ drone arsenals

The modest purchase of the replicators is the result of a deal with the European Drone Alliance, which plans to send 30,000 FPV attack drones to Ukraine for $55 million on a similar schedule, approximately Multiplying the number by 10 will result in approximately 1/10th the amount. Individually FPV may not be as good as SwitchBlades, but mass is also important and you can tackle more targets.

Meanwhile, China has reportedly ordered almost 1 million attack drones. It is unclear whether these are small FPVs, large Shahed-type attack drones, or a mix of both. Ukrainian reporter Dylan Maryasov, writing for DefenseBlog, said he discovered the order during a conversation with Chinese company Poly Technologies.

“We already have orders for around 1 million drones for the government and have had to turn away other customers to meet demand,” a representative said, according to Maryasov.

Ukraine and Russia also produced more than 1 million small drones each last year, but they are still largely assembled by hand in small workshops. Production in Ukraine is particularly decentralized. Drones are said to be built in every basement in Kiev.

Although the United States makes high-quality drones, it currently lags far behind in terms of mass production capacity. Arsenal 1 looks like a step in the right direction, combining volume with the ability to adapt and produce new designs at high speed. If only they could convince Anduril’s government customers to order.