Anduril has unveiled the Barracuda-M family of air-breathing and software-defined cruise missiles.

According to the company, Barracuda-M is the munition configuration of Barracuda Autonomous Air Vehicles (AAVs) that delivers a more affordable, producible, available, and adaptable cruise missile capability than existing options available to armed forces today.

The Barracuda family of AAVs consists of the variants Barracuda-100, Barracuda-250, and Barracuda-500. Each increment offers increased size, range, and payload capacity, while all Barracuda are compatible with a host of payloads and deployment mechanisms.

In total, the Barracuda family of AAVs is capable of offering 100+ km of maximum range, 45+ kg of payload capacity, 5 Gs of manoeuvrability, and more than 120 minutes of loitering time.

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The vehicle’s fast speeds, high manoeuvrability, and extended ranges are made possible by Barracuda’s air-breathing turbojet engines. The result is a highly intelligent, low-cost weapon system that is capable of direct, stand-in, or stand-off strike missions in line with existing requirements but rapidly adaptable to future mission needs due to its high degree of modularity and upgradeability.

The manufacturer points out that a single Barracuda missile system takes 50 per cent less time to produce, requires 95 per cent fewer tools, and has 50 per cent fewer parts than competing solutions on the market today. As a result, the Barracuda family of AAVs is 30 per cent cheaper on average than other solutions, enabling affordable and cost-effective produced mass.

Barracuda-250 AAV

Every Barracuda variant is made up of commercially derived and widely available components that provide supply chain resiliency.

Barracuda-100 AAV

Barracuda’s performance is powered and controlled by Anduril’s Lattice for Mission Autonomy software, which offers autonomous capabilities and collaborative behaviours. The latter can be continuously updated to meet evolving mission requirements, unlike its peers that require months or years to update.

Barracuda-500 AAV

The Barracuda family of AAVs can be deployed from a variety of different air, ground, or maritime platforms. The system is compatible with internal weapons bays of fifth-generation aircraft, external rails of fourth-generation fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, MFOM launchers and Common Launch Tubes (CLTs), surface vessels, pallets from airlift aircraft, and more.

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