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The Army’s $87 million deal with Anduril is about linking sensors and shooters to give operators a better shot at defeating drones

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The US Army’s sweeping new deal with Anduril includes an $87 million effort to link counter-drone systems so troops can better spot, track, and destroy enemy drones — a threat growing on and off the battlefield.

The Army-led Joint Interagency Task Force 401 selected Anduril’s Lattice software for its new command and control system. JIATF-401, established last summer, has been working to write the rules for countering drones in partnership with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. Sharing approved systems, particularly a common software that everyone can use, has been a priority for the task force.

The task force announced the decision last Friday, saying that a common backbone for its drone defenses was necessary as uncrewed aerial systems become an increasing threat.

Anduril’s Lattice is expected to allow personnel from across the military and federal agents to share and see each other’s data, have a clearer picture of what threats exist, and better coordinate responses to drone attacks, the service said in its press statement.

On Monday, Anduril said the task force’s command and control system with Lattice will involve numerous sensors for detecting drones and interceptors for stopping them.

Legacy weapon systems and new assets will be able to connect to the platform, “enabling distributed detection, tracking, classification, and ultimately engagement of UAS threats,” Park Hughes, Anduril’s managing director for air defense, said.


A small drone sits on a rock. A soldier wearing camouflage crouches next to the rock.

JIATF-401 was stood up last August to rapidly deploy counter-drone systems and common operating procedures across the military and government agencies. 

US Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Donovan E. Melendez



Lattice is also part of the Army’s new Next Generation Command and Control system, which the service has been testing since last year. NGC2 is being built with a Silicon Valley-style “move fast, fail fast, fix fast” approach, which the Army and other services have said is necessary to field new systems quickly.

The task force’s $87 million agreement falls under a much larger contract the Army also announced Friday. That agreement, worth up to $20 billion over the next decade, allows any federal agency to purchase Anduril’s off-the-shelf systems, the company’s chief business officer, Matthew Steckman, told reporters.

“The modern battlefield is increasingly defined by software,” Gabe Chiulli, chief technology officer for the Department of Defense’s Office of the Chief Information Officer, said in a release. “To maintain our advantage, we must be able to acquire and deploy software capabilities with speed and efficiency.”

Steckman said that while the contract isn’t the first of its kind, it was more complex because Anduril makes a wide variety of products, from software to drones and wearable artificial intelligence goggles, that the government can buy. The Army alone has 120 existing contracts with Anduril already, and the new deal is intended to help streamline how the company and the government do business.

“By establishing both the common C2 [command and control] software platform and the common process for the government to procure, deploy, and sustain ever-improving counter-UAS software at scale, the JIATF is very much accelerating the nation’s response to the UAS threat,” Hughes said.

The Army and other military services are shifting their approach, aiming to reduce what leaders see as bureaucratic hurdles in how weapons are tested, funded, and procured. That shift includes buying commercially available systems, such as software, drones, and counter-drone technology, from vendors like Anduril.

Officials have said the changing approach is designed to cut costs, speed up the acquisition process, and rapidly procure the weapons that troops need sooner rather than later.




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US Marines are on the hunt for a cloak they can wear to hide themselves from thermal-imaging sensors

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The Marine Corps is looking for a new outer garment to protect its troops from battlefield threats that can see through traditional camouflage and concealment.

The modern battlefield is becoming increasingly saturated with sensors, including thermal-imaging technology that can detect human and vehicle heat signatures in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum. Many of the drones in the Ukraine war are equipped with thermal-imaging cameras that have been used to deadly effect.

Ukrainian troops have sought solutions, and now, so are US Marines.

The Marines published a new ‘sources sought’ notification on Wednesday announcing the service’s search for vendors who could create a camouflage to reduce the chance of infrared detection, calling the desired garment a “Multispectral Camouflage Overgarment.”

The post said it will deliver “individual signature management” by “mitigating detection across the visual, near infrared, and short-wave infrared spectrums as well as suppress thermal signatures in the mid-wave infrared and long wave infrared to reduce the likelihood of detection by thermal sensors.”

The garment is intended to mask how a Marine appears not only to the naked eye and night vision devices, but also to advanced infrared and thermal sensors used by drones and surveillance systems.

To accomplish that aim, the Corps is seeking “a single-piece, generously-sized draped design constructed to provide full-body coverage, including individual gear and equipment,” the document said. It must be capable of being donned within 15 seconds, over a Marine’s uniform and equipment, whether deployed or during training.

The cloak could significantly reduce the distance from which Marines are detected, making it harder for adversaries to spot them using both ground-based and aerial sensors. It must also function in extreme temperatures and varied environmental conditions.

The service says it intends to have more than 61,000 of the cloaks available to troops by fiscal year 2030.

The US military has long recognized the need for such a capability, but the extreme proliferation of sensors aboard cheap drones in the war in Ukraine has heightened the urgency.

“We know that adversary [target] acquisition systems are very, very capable in that, if you can see a target, with precision munitions … you can hit a target,” Gen. Mark Milley, then the Army’s chief of staff, told lawmakers in 2019. “So camouflage systems that break up electronic signatures and break up heat signatures are critical.”

Last year, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll spoke bluntly about the modern battlefield in Ukraine during a War on the Rocks podcast, saying that “you cannot move without being seen.” He said that would require changes in how ground forces operate.

Ukraine’s 56th Separate Motorized Infantry Mariupol Brigade shared video footage last March of its efforts to combat thermal imaging, presenting what it described as anti-thermal suits.

“This is not fantasy. It is the reality of modern warfare,” the 56th said in a caption posted alongside the video footage.

“Thermal imaging suits are changing the rules of the battlefield, making soldiers invisible to enemy thermal-imaging cameras and drones. Such technologies are critical for assault teams, reconnaissance, snipers, and even evacuation missions. And this is just the beginning.”




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