Anduril Industries Ghost-X small UAV. (Janes/Nigel Torp-Petersen)
Anduril Industries displayed an improved variant of its Ghost unmanned aircraft system (UAS) at DSEI 2023 in London.
The Ghost-X is designed to provide extended intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities over the earlier variant, including in Global Positioning System (GPS)-denied environments.
The improved variant of the modular Ghost has a dual-battery configuration and an upgraded architecture that is designed to maximise payload capacity, range, endurance, and modularity to enable a wider range of payloads to be integrated.
Ghost-X features a rail-centric helicopter design with snap-attachment nose-mounted payloads, batteries, two-bladed main rotors, a three-bladed tail rotor, and three landing legs.
An Anduril official told Janes that “the Ghost-X is designed to bridge the gap between low-endurance quadcopters and a fixed-wing reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)”. The design also incorporates operational feedback from over 1,000 flying hours from various customers, including the UK Ministry of Defence, the official added.
The UAS typically uses Anduril's Lattice OS software platform to automate mission planning, airspace management, and flight operations. Ghost-X has a maximum take-off weight of 25 kg with a dual-battery configuration and 20 kg with a single battery, a payload capacity of 9 kg, baseline and extended ranges of 12 km and 25 km, and a stated endurance of 75 min (in cruise mode with the dual-battery configuration). This brings significant improvements over the earlier Ghost, which has a maximum take-off weight of 17 kg, a payload capacity of 4.5 kg, a range of 12 km, and an endurance of 55 min (in cruise mode). The range extension to 25 km is achieved through an optional long-range communications kit.
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