Bolt / Bolt-M

Bolt is a backpack-deployable vertical-takeoff quadcopter built by Anduril Industries , introduced at the AUSA conference in October 2024 in two forms: a baseline Bolt for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and a Bolt-M loitering munition for precision strike. Both are designed to be pulled from a soft case and flying within a few minutes, a deliberate answer to the steep skill curve of the first-person-view racing drones that have come to dominate close-range strike work in Ukraine. Rather than a pilot threading a video feed, a Bolt operator works from a touchscreen, drawing a box around what the aircraft should watch or hit.

The two variants share an airframe and most of their numbers. Range is around 20 kilometres, endurance is in the 40-to-45-minute band, and both carry an electro-optical and infrared camera for day and night work. The Bolt weighs roughly 5.4 kilograms; the heavier Bolt-M trades some endurance for a payload of up to about 1.4 kilograms, enough for an anti-personnel or anti-armour warhead, and adds an electronic safe-and-arm device so the munition can be carried and aborted safely. The autonomy comes from Anduril’s Lattice software: once the operator designates a target, the aircraft can decide where to look, what to follow and how to run the final approach, continuing to track even if the radio link drops or satellite navigation is jammed. A human stays in the loop for the order to strike.

The first disclosed customer is the United States Marine Corps. Anduril presented Bolt-M at launch as already under evaluation for the Corps’ Organic Precision Fires-Light requirement, and in January 2026 the company announced a $23.9 million contract for more than 600 Bolt-M systems and their ground control stations, with first units fielded in the summer of 2026 after roughly a year of testing. Anduril positions the line as a cheaper, easier-to-employ alternative to AeroVironment’s Switchblade family, at a unit price the company describes as in the low tens of thousands of dollars. No combat use has been publicly confirmed.