he French defence innovation agency AID (Agence de l’Innovation de Défense) has announced the selection of a consortium led by MBDA in response to the LARINAE call for projects. The objective of LARINAE is the rapid and collaborative development of a remotely controlled ammunition capable of neutralising a hardened target within a radius of fifty kilometres.
Following on from the success of the first COLIBRI call for projects, MBDA has confirmed its position in the field of remotely-controlled ammunitions with the selection of its MUTANT concept, based on a “Minimum Viable Product” approach and focused on user requirements. It confirms MBDA’s choice of an agile approach, to respond to the need for a rapid, innovative and sovereign solution for the armed forces.
This new propelled and guided munition benefits from technologies developed by MBDA over many years, in particular the AKERON family, to ensure very high levels of performance in neutralising armoured and mobile targets, while guaranteeing operational reliability and complete safety.
MUTANT also takes advantage of the latest technological advances in the field of civil and military UAVs to produce a munition with the best cost/performance ratio.
Designed as a true man-in-the-loop weapon system, this solution, will offer complementary capabilities to land-based combat missiles in terms of targeting speed, manoeuvrability, endurance, range and enemy saturation capability. This remotely controlled ammunition, with its ability to strike beyond line-of-sight, is a natural complement to MBDA’s portfolio of battlefield effectors such as the AKERON MP and LP.
The consortium is following French Ministerial Instruction 1618, which allows it to work with the armed forces and the DGA to define the best compromise between requirements and solutions, ensuring a rapid and effective response to the needs of the armed forces.
The ambitious demonstrations planned for 2024 under the LARINAE contract will benefit from the self-financed work carried out by MBDA since 2022, which has already enabled the first flights of the MUTANT MTO with the SME Delair. These advances will allow even faster progress and adaptation to the requirements of this new capability.
Source: MBDA news release
