WASHINGTON ― Anduril Industries plans to unveil a trailer-mounted version of its surveillance tower known as Mobile Sentry at the Association of the U.S. Army trade show.

The system is an advanced force protection measure advertised as quick to relocate, set up and scuttle.

“This system was built to be truly expeditionary so it can move with forces on the move,” Anduril Chief Strategy Officer Chris Brose told Defense News ahead of the company’s announcement.

“It is a trailerized version that can be set up very quickly ... but from the time that it is operating, it’s providing a fully autonomous bubble of protection around that force,” he added.

The original Sentry uses Anduril’s Lattice artificial intelligence software and a variety of radars and electro-optical, infrared and radio frequency sensors to identify, detect and track objects ― and then pass that data to command-and-control nodes. Brose said Sentry can detect drones of varying sizes, from small quadcopters to large, fixed-wing aircraft.

According to the company, Mobile Sentry can be positioned, set up and made ready in less than 20 minutes by one operator with no specialized training or support. It can operate for 100 hours on a full tank of diesel or jet fuel.

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The new system uses a ruggedized trailer Brose said is easily towable even while off road behind a military vehicle or a commercial pickup truck. It fits inside a C-17 or C-130 aircraft and can be carried inside or sling-loaded by a CH-47 heavy-lift helicopter.

Anduril began supplying the stationary towers in 2020 to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for the southern border. For Mobile Sentry, the company envisions the Army, Marine Corps, special operations forces and elements of the Air Force as potential customers.

It “meets the need that the force has right now in terms of something that is highly expeditionary, just highly modular, very open,” Brose said. “These are the kinds of things that we hear directly from the United States Army that they need, both now and in the future ― a platform on which you can build and upgrade.”

Like the original, it’s marketed as customizable with a variety of sensors, payloads and communications components for autonomous security and countering drones at forward-deployed military bases, borders, oil and gas fields, or other critical infrastructure. The heart of the system is its Lattice software.

Mobile Sentry wouldn’t be the only American-made, vehicle-mounted surveillance system to launch this year. Teledyne FLIR Defense unveiled its Lightweight Vehicle Surveillance System in February, which also advertises a counter-drone capability.

Joe Gould was the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. He had previously served as Congress reporter.

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