Posted on 09/10/2020 8:43:57 PM PDT by BeauBo
The company building the virtual border wall has a new version of its stealthy fast-flying drones — and a fresh contract with Customs and Border Protection to match. Anduril, a young defense-friendly tech company from the founder of Oculus, received $36 million from Customs and Border Protection this month for its AI-powered autonomous surveillance towers...
In July, CBP awarded Anduril $25 million for a previous set of surveillance towers. The agency plans to implement 200 towers by 2022 in an ongoing relationship with the contractor worth more than $200 million...
Now, Anduril is launching the fourth iteration of its small, ultra-quiet “Ghost” drones, adding some key features.
Ghost drones are capable of staying aloft for long stretches and communicating what they see to a central AI-powered nervous system. They combine data with Anduril’s sentry towers and any other hardware, relaying it back to the company’s Lattice software platform, which flags anything of interest. In the case of CBP, that looks like a system autonomously identifying someone crossing U.S. border and sending a push alert to border agents.
Ghost 4 is the latest version of the Ghost drone, boasting 100 minutes of flight time and a “near-silent acoustic signature” that makes it difficult to detect. The Ghost 4 drones now apparently pack Anduril’s Lattice AI software on board, which allows them to operate and identify potential targets in spots with low connectivity or “contested” areas. The new version of the Ghost drone also allows one operator to command a group of Ghost drones to form a swarm, collecting data across many devices.
According to the company, the Ghost 4 is designed for an array of mission types, including “aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, cargo delivery, counter intrusion, signal intelligence and electronic warfare.”
(Excerpt) Read more at techcrunch.com ...
Anduril founder Lucky was homeschooled, and is only 27 years old. He is worth $763 million from his sale of Occulus.
Is he single?
Forged from the shards of Narsil.
Anduril’s Autonomous Surveillance Towers (AST) are now a Program of Record (built into the long term budget for lifecycle costs like annual operations, maintenance, training and replacements).
They have been in use since 2018, and CBP liked the results. First they ordered six for evaluation, then 54 more to deploy, and then 140 more for deployment (200 total on hand or on order). By the end of next year, they will be flooding the zone. 200 more Mobile Surveillance Systems, which are vehicle mounted, manned systems from a different vendor, will also be deploying this year and next.
Anduril’s unmanned system (AST) can set up in an hour, and operate off the grid using solar panels (the Southern Border is the best part of the country for solar). The feeds from their sensors are integrated to the monitoring software in the command posts, as well as some autonomous (onboard) recognition ability, and direct alerting of nearby Border Patrol Officers.
These new Ghost drones will network in with the Lattice software system, so multiple sensor feeds can be fused, and artificial intelligence on big, fast computers in the command post or cloud can chew on the data, and quickly learn to get better and better at picking out infiltrators.
These drones are being developed for general Military use, so they will likely become increasingly autonomous in their flight and operations - replacements taking off in time to relieve those on station, before they must return to base to recharge, and coordinating amongst themselves to operate in a swarm, like a pack of wolves.
The actual wall that is damned tough to get over (under or through), is already funded, and is now the biggest construction project in the USA.
With ladders and ropes, people climb Mount Everest. So some reduced number will climb even the best of walls. Therefore, the walls themselves must be watched and guarded.
These Anduril systems will be like the unblinking, sleepless eyes of hundreds, or thousands of human guards.
Not just more, but actually better -able to see in the dark, and more.
Before you complain about wanting human guards, I assure you that Border Patrol is hiring up. These are in addition to the human guards. Force multipliers.
He also mentioned charging entrance fees to America. Help to pay for border gate expenses as well as the Wall.
Works for me.
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