Anduril Industries on Thursday said it has launched a new family of passive airborne imaging and targeting sensors it calls Iris that can detect, track, and discriminate targets in all domains.
The Iris sensors can be integrated on most aircraft, the company said, including manned and unmanned systems for autonomous, artificial intelligence-based, long-range image processing. As with all Anduril products, the focus is on a software-defined solution that is hardware enabled for broad use.
“In a future fight, airborne systems will be faced with numerous targets and threats moving across all domains,” Brian Schimpf, co-founder and CEO of Anduril, said in a statement. “Airborne sensors must be able to rapidly and autonomously detect, track, identify, and classify each of those targets simultaneously.”
The sensors can support applications such as infrared search and track, missile warning, visualization, and targeting, Anduril said.
The Iris suite of sensors, which come in different configurations and applications, builds on the company’s Computational Pixel Imager (CPI) technology that is used in its Wide-Area Infrared System for Persistent Surveillance (WISP), which is fielded for counter-drone, counter-air, and counter-intrusion missions worldwide. The Air Force in late December awarded Anduril $31.1 million to provide WISP for counter-drone and counter-intrusion protection at Edwards AFB, Calif.
WISP can detect Group 1 and 2 drones out to five and 13 kilometers, respectively, and dismounted operator and ground vehicles out to five and 15 kilometers, respectively, the company says.
Anduril said that the CPI technology uses processors in every pixel to reduce signal noise and detect and track targets at longer ranges “than previously thought possible” using AI capabilities.
“We are proud to offer cutting-edge performance at low cost, with scalable production that leverages novel material science and manufacturing approaches to drive affordability and competitive lead times of critical components,” Matthew Steckman, Anduril’s chief revenue officer, said in a statement.
Development of the Iris sensors follows Anduril’s acquisition of Copious Imaging in 2021.