Well, we’re starting off the week with a bang (get it). On Friday, robotic weapons company Allen Control Systems (ACS) announced that they’ve scored a contract (for an undisclosed amount) with US Special Operations Forces (SOF) to integrate its flagship Bullfrog autonomous machine gun onto SOF’s maritime platforms.
The contract was awarded in collaboration with defense contractor ManTech. In a statement, ACS CEO Mike Wior said that selection by SOF’s maritime units, who operate in some of the trickiest environments in the world, is a massive vote of confidence for the company and its tech.
“[SOF’s] selection of Bullfrog reflects an urgent need for adaptable systems deployable across land and maritime platforms and trusted to defend against the expanding drone threat,” he said. “We are honored to be part of this unit’s mission.”
Pow-pow: ACS was founded back in 2022 by Wior, Steve Simoni, and Luke Allen. (Simoni made a name for himself by founding Bbot, a software and robotics restaurant technology company that DoorDash acquired.) They set out to use AI and robotics to transform legacy weapons platforms—like machine guns—into autonomous systems.
The company’s flagship product is an autonomous gun tower called Bullfrog that uses AI and computer vision to identify, track, and target aerial threats—drones in particular.
- Earlier this year, Simoni told Tectonic in an interview that the main idea behind the system is to reduce the threat from things like enemy fire and shrapnel to machine gun operators.
- In tests, the system clocks a drone threat, can swing around up to 180 degrees, and pick UAVs out of the sky, all faster than humans can.
- The system can be installed on a range of platforms—trucks, cars, and, as in this instance, boats.
Big bucks: Investors seem to like the idea of the robot machine gun. Back in March, ACS raised a $30M Series A led by Craft Ventures at a $174M valuation, bringing total funding to $42M. Simoni also teased a $100M Series B in an interview with Fortune earlier this year.
The company demoed its tech for the Army as part of Project Convergence and for the JCO’s Counter-Small Unmanned Systems Office earlier this spring.
On the cheap: The nifty thing about Bullfrog is that because it uses standard-issue bullets, it’s pretty cheap to operate—basically, the AI and robotics on the gun tower enable operators to work with what they’ve got. And it doesn’t sound like the company plans to stop with machine guns—they see their model of applying robotics and AI to old-school weapons systems as broadly applicable across the military.
“The rapid proliferation of low-cost weaponized drones is reshaping modern combat, demanding an entirely new approach to defense,” the company said in a statement.
They see their approach of sprucing up existing weapons systems as one of the easiest ways to meet this new moment in warfare—Bullfrog, they say, can enable “any legacy or modern weapon to achieve precise engagements at any target and significantly increases the accuracy of existing battlefield systems.” Huge if true.