Anduril Industries
Anduril Industries is a defense technology company, founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey and Trae Stephens, that builds next-generation software and hardware systems for military and security applications. They leverage AI, autonomous systems, and sensor fusion to provide advanced situational awareness.
Anduril Industries is named for Andúril, the fictional sword of Aragorn from “The Lord of the Rings”.
History
In 2017, Stephens co-founded Anduril Industries alongside Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR and fellow former Palantir colleagues Matt Grimm, Joe Chen, and Brian Schimpf. The idea for Anduril arose in 2014, when Stephens met Luckey at a Founders Fund retreat, where they bonded over the idea of applying Silicon Valley startup techniques to the defense sector. Anduril set out to build advanced autonomous weapon systems and autonomous surveillance technology. They planned to employ Luckey’s developmental approach with the Oculus headset to combine low-cost hardware components with sophisticated software
In 2017, as part of an initiative that had begun the previous year, the Defense Department unveiled the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team, known as Project Maven, to harness the latest AI research into battlefield technology, starting with a project to improve image recognition for drones operating in the Middle East.
In June 2018, Lattice surveillance towers were informally tested on a Texas rancher’s private land.
In 2020, Anduril was one of more than 50 companies selected by the U.S. Air Force to help develop the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS, see below) under a contract worth up to $950 million.
Between 22nd June 2022 to 22nd June 2025, at least ten Anduril Maritime Sentry Towers, 5.5 meter tall towers fitted with radar as well as thermal and electro-optical imaging sensors have been identified between Hastings and Ramsgate. Anduril describes Sentry as “an autonomous surveillance platform that uses artificial intelligence to detect, identify, and track objects of interest”.
In January 2024, Anduril was one of five vendors contracted by the US Air Force for the development of collaborative combat aircraft. In April 2024, the U.S. Army Defense Innovation Unit selected Anduril to develop a software framework, for robotic combat vehicle payloads.
The Lattice platform had been selected by the U.S. Space Force in 2024 for use in surveillance networks. Anduril has also collaborated with OpenAI to enhance defence systems designed to protect military personnel from drone threats.
Products
Lattice is a software platform that uses artificial intelligence to classify objects by fusing data from disparate sensors.
Ghost is an unmanned aerial vehicle. Machine learning and computer vision algorithms are used to identify and track targets. The drone can upload data to Anduril’s Lattice system. The drone uses Nvidia processing units originally designed for self-driving cars. The drone was designed to use on-board processing chips, due to bandwidth limitations for communication links, and to enable radio silence, by processing imagery independently without the need for a centralized analysis system that requires communication. An onboard camera provides a live feed for operators.
Sentry Tower is a 33-foot (10 m) tall solar-powered portable surveillance tower. See The UK’s AI Borders: Anduril’s Autonomous Surveillance Towers
Military programs
Advanced Battle Management System / Joint All-Domain Command & Control
ABMS is a digital architecture battlefield management system, designed to connect data across a variety of sources and weapons, including “jets, drones, ships and soldiers”.
See Joint All-Domain Command and Control.
Integrated Visual Augmentation System
On February 11, 2025, Anduril took over the development and production of Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) from Microsoft for the U.S. Department of Defense. IVAS is an augmented reality headset being developed by Anduril Industries and Microsoft for the United States Army.
See Integrated Visual Augmentation System.
Project Maven
Project Maven is an initiative that started in 2018 intended to adapt AI for military purposes.
See Project Maven.