Rheinmetall and the drone operating system provider Auterion are entering into a close collaboration to develop standardized, software-based components for unmanned drone systems. Both companies have signed a multi-year agreement to this end.
According to the two partners, they are pooling their expertise “to establish a military industry standard for the control and operation of unmanned drone systems in the air, on land and at sea”. The collaboration includes both joint product development and sales activities for unmanned platforms. The resulting standardized operating system is intended to offer military users considerable advantages. https://militaeraktuell.at/elbit-selbstschutzsysteme-bundesheer-c-390m/ As a drone manufacturer, Rheinmetall uses the operational experience of the Luna NG (see picture above) and Aladin systems and contributes this to the cooperation. Various drone systems from the Düsseldorf-based technology group have already been in service with the Bundeswehr for many years. German Armed Forces and have been in use in Ukraine for several months (-> current news from the Ukraine war). Timo Haas, Chief Digital Officer of Rheinmetall AG, explains: “In Ukraine, we see over two hundred different airborne unmanned systems. As a result, training the military is very costly and time-consuming and the systems are not interoperable. Cooperation with Auterion and the development of a standardized operating system will enable the efficient and scalable use of unmanned systems. With our approach, there will be no need for system-dependent user training or system-specific integration into an overall system network in the future.”
Lorenz Meier, CEO of Auterion: “Drones will be used in large numbers in the future and, like computers and smartphones, will require a common operating system to make this possible. Auterion OS allows the customer to bring all drones onto a common basis and integrate different manufacturers into a common architecture. Our software stack is already tried and tested in the field and thus enables Software Defined Defense.”
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