Anduril’s Barracuda-100M Drone Successfully Pass U.S. Army Flight Tests in High-Speed Maneuverable Missile Program

Anduril Industries has successfully completed major flight tests of its Barracuda-100M drone, marking a big step forward in the U.S. Army’s High-Speed Maneuverable Missile (HSMM) program. The flight trials, carried out in May 2025, confirmed the drone’s ability to fly fast, think for itself, and accurately strike targets — all at a lower cost compared to traditional missiles.

The Barracuda-100M is an autonomous air vehicle, built to be modular, affordable, and extremely fast. It’s designed as a testbed for new technology like the Precision Target Acquisition Seeker (PTAS) — a high-tech targeting system that can track objects using a special Long Wave Infrared (LWIR) camera. This allows it to follow targets passively and without being detected, even in complex environments.

These flight tests were done with the help of the U.S. Army’s DEVCOM Aviation & Missile Center (AvMC). The goal was to see how well the drone performs under real conditions and how easily it can adapt to different missions using Anduril’s Lattice for Mission Autonomy, a smart software system that makes the drone think and fly on its own.

Anduril and the Army began working together on this in 2023. Over the next year, they moved quickly through a packed test schedule that included wind tunnel tests, glide flights, engine trials, and finally, full-powered missions. The Barracuda-100M performed extremely well — reaching speeds over 500 knots, pulling off sharp high-G maneuvers, and hitting multiple targets accurately.

To make the drone even better, engineers added new features like a low-cost navigation system, a separate mission computer, and easier-to-build hardware. These upgrades make the drone more practical for mass production.

The next step will be ground-launched tests later in 2025, to show that the drone can also be launched by mobile Army units in the field. The full program is expected to wrap up with a live-fire demonstration in 2026 at a military test site.

What makes the Barracuda-100M truly exciting is its potential on the battlefield. According to Anduril, it delivers ten times the range of a Hellfire missile — one of the U.S. military’s most used weapons — but at a similar price. That means more firepower, for less cost.

Thanks to its modular design, the drone can carry different sensors or weapons, and can be launched from either ground vehicles or aircraft. This makes it highly flexible for future operations, especially in high-threat environments where speed, precision, and autonomy matter most.

With the success of these tests, the Barracuda-100M is now one step closer to becoming a game-changing tool in the U.S. Army’s high-speed missile arsenal — smart, fast, and ready for tomorrow’s wars.