Bullfrog drone-killing gun gets radar eyes from Echodyne

Radar maker Echodyne and Allen Control Systems have signed a strategic collaboration agreement to pair Echodyne’s EchoShield counter-drone radar with ACS’s Bullfrog autonomous weapon station, combining long-range radar tracking with an AI-guided gun that fires standard ammunition at drones on land and at sea.

The companies announced the agreement on Oct. 13, saying they have already integrated EchoShield with Bullfrog and will keep testing the combined system, including at U.S. Department of War demonstration events designed to evaluate it under realistic operating conditions. The deal covers both companies’ hardware and software road maps and follows recent awards to each from Joint Interagency Task Force 401, the Pentagon office that leads counter-drone efforts, for its Domestic Shield effort and its C-UAS Marketplace.

Bullfrog uses computer vision, autonomous controls and precision robotics to turn existing weapons, such as the M240 machine gun, into counter-drone systems that detect, track, identify and engage drones on their own. Adding EchoShield’s radar data gives the gun station a continuous picture of where drones are in the surrounding airspace, letting it turn its cameras and barrel toward a target earlier, keep tracking drones as they maneuver and calculate a firing solution faster. The radar measures the precise position and speed of a wide range of drone types and flight profiles, and its open interfaces send that data both to Bullfrog and to wider command-and-control networks.

“Counter-UAS effectiveness begins with data quality,” said Eben Frankenberg, CEO of Echodyne. “Bullfrog brings together advanced robotics, AI, and widely available weapons to solve one of the most urgent challenges facing defense forces today. Combining ACS’s autonomous weapon station with the precision of EchoShield radar creates a highly capable and economically scalable solution for the United States and allied customers operating across land and maritime domains.”

EchoShield is built on Echodyne’s patented MESA architecture, which delivers the performance of an electronically scanned array radar, the kind that steers its beam without moving parts, in a small, light and low-cost unit made with commercial materials and supply chains. The companies say pairing that radar with standard-issue guns and ammunition lets forces shoot down drones without the high cost per shot and limited supply of missile interceptors.

“Bullfrog was designed to transform existing weapons into precise, autonomous defense systems and to fuse the best available data into every engagement,” said Mike Wior, co-founder and CEO of ACS. “Echodyne’s commercial radar technology provides the accurate, high-fidelity track data needed to identify threats earlier, maintain custody, and deliver effective kinetic outcomes. Our partnership also enables on-the-move defense, helping protect warfighters against drone threats while they maneuver. Together, we are creating a scalable solution that gives warfighters greater awareness, more decision time, and an affordable way to defeat drones at operational scale.”

The agreement puts particular weight on maritime missions, since Bullfrog is compact enough to mount on crewed and uncrewed vessels and EchoShield is already being fitted to uncrewed surface vessels for maritime surveillance and counter-drone work, where small size, low power draw and the ability to track targets while moving matter most. Together, the two systems give a vessel the ability to detect and track aerial and surface contacts, point the weapon station at them and let operators respond quickly, and the companies plan to offer the combination for fixed sites, vehicles on the move, expeditionary forces and ships.

Bullfrog is already in service with U.S. forces, and ACS holds contracts with the U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Special Operations Command. In July, the U.S. Marine Corps selected Bullfrog for its Light Marine Air Defense Integrated System under a prototype contract worth about $6.2 million, and the company has also signed deals to supply Bullfrog to South Korea and the United Arab Emirates. ACS is headquartered in Austin, Texas, where it builds the system, and Echodyne is based in the Seattle area.