Ghost Bat rival Fury limited only by ‘government policy’

Anduril’s Fury was displayed for the first time at Avalon and, unlike its local rival, is designed to work with a commercially available engine as well as Anduril’s autonomous software.

Talking to Australian Aviation’s sister brand, Defence Connect, the business said there had been significant interest in the aircraft.

“We’re super excited about the reception, and I wouldn’t just focus on the aircraft,” said Christian Brose, Anduril Industries’ president and chief strategy officer.

“We’re super excited about the reception, and I wouldn’t just focus on the aircraft. The other priority has really been what we call mission autonomy and how we think about the underlying sort of software and intelligence that’s making that aircraft something fundamentally different,” he said.

“The ability to operate multiple systems simultaneously with a single commander and change that ability to very flexibly and adaptively add new software capability, new behaviours … I would argue is even more important than the aircraft.

“It is an autonomous system, which means that you can provide it with a sort of commander’s intent, and then it has the ability to organise itself or tasks for it to perform.

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“(Targeting) is a policy decision, and that’s something that governments are going to have to decide on as a matter of governmental policy. But as builders of technology, we’re focused on providing the capability for them to be able to operate in the way that they want to in accordance with their laws and policies.

“Our belief as a company is that the ultimate decision about the use of violence, use of force, is ultimately always going to have to remain a human decision.”

Brose added that the vehicles should be considered similar to an ‘empty truck’ regarding rapid-change capability.

“The focus is because of how fast this technology is changing specifically on the software and the payload side, you have to be open and modular by design, or you’ll be irrelevant from a software perspective,” he said.

“Everything about the software is adaptable and changeable. You can build directly on top of the lattice for mission, autonomy, software platform, new applications, and new algorithms for sensor processing, and that can be done here in Australia.

“On the payload side, the ability to mount different payloads on it is very straightforward and easy, and the aircraft was designed with that purpose in mind … but the ability to very easily snap on different sensors to mount different weapons, it’s kind of a limitless opportunity in that regard and the ability to do it is quite fast.

“There’s not an internal payload bay. So if you want to put weapons on it… the logical place you’re doing that is on hard points, which also opens up a lot of space in terms of the kinds of weapons that you could integrate onto the aircraft. However, sensors and systems could also be internally carried.”

Anduril Australia executive chairman and chief executive David Goodrich OAM, also speaking to Defence Connect at Avalon, confirmed that the Fury was pitched to Australia as a domestically produced product.

“In Australia, we see the acceptance that there is value in manned and unmanned teaming through platforms working together,” Goodrich said.

“We’re a long way away from a decision as to whether or not manufacturing happens in Australia. But we’re manufacturing Ghost Shark in Australia … Three years ago, we promised that we would produce three Ghost Sharks in three years. We meet those promises. We meet them ahead of schedule and we meet them on budget.

“So there’s absolutely no reason why we cannot foresee a similar program … subject to export approval from the United States government to manufacture all kinds of capabilities in Australia.”