Startup’s laser turns Rheinmetall autonomous cargo vehicle into drone killer

Aurelius Systems is showing its Archimedes autonomous laser weapon mounted on an American Rheinmetall unmanned ground vehicle at the Association of the U.S. Army annual meeting in Washington this week, where the two companies are pitching mobile laser defense against small drones to U.S. Army buyers.

The San Francisco-based startup said in a post on X that Archimedes is on display in motion at the Rheinmetall booth through the end of the show, as part of the companies’ partnership to bring counter-drone lasers to uncrewed combat vehicles.

Archimedes is a lightweight turret that combines a high-power laser with machine vision and radar, and Aurelius says it can find, track and burn down a drone on its own without an operator initiating each engagement. The system is aimed at Group 1 and Group 2 drones, the small and medium-size types that include commercial quadcopters and many of the one-way attack drones used in Ukraine, and the company says it can defeat them at more than a kilometer.

The two firms announced their partnership in July. According to Tectonic, Archimedes is being integrated first on the Ox, the unmanned ground vehicle American Rheinmetall has entered in the U.S. Army’s Ground Optionally Autonomous Transport competition for a vehicle that hauls supplies and equipment over rough terrain. With a laser on board, a cargo-carrying vehicle can defend itself against drones during resupply runs, a role Rheinmetall has described as protection for autonomous logistics missions.

Aurelius first showed the laser on a Rheinmetall vehicle at the Reindustrialize 2026 conference in Detroit in June, in a display built with American Rheinmetall and electric vehicle startup Harbinger.

In August, the company raised a $40 million Series A round co-led by Draper Associates and KAS Venture Partners to scale up Archimedes production. During the Pentagon’s T-REX 26-2 experimentation event, the laser downed more than 20 quadcopters and more than five drones supplied by the U.S. Army, Tectonic reported, and at the U.S. Army’s Operation Jailbreak exercise at Fort Carson, Colorado, Aurelius linked Archimedes with Anduril’s Lattice software and the Army’s Forward Area Air Defense command and control system, which ties sensors and shooters together.

Lasers appeal to militaries because each shot costs only the electricity needed to fire it, compared with tens of thousands of dollars or more for a missile interceptor, and Aurelius says it builds Archimedes largely from commercially available parts to keep the system’s own price down.