CTV Subscribers,
I’m excited to bring you this timely episode of "Crossing the Valley." I had the opportunity to sit down with Kara Kramer, the Director of Business Development at AeroVironment, and winner of the first Replicator award!
In this episode, Kara spills the beans on AeroVironment's recent win, and goes in depth on the Switchblade loitering munition. We dive into the details of the program, the future of autonomy in the defense industry, and AeroVironment itself.
Kara shares valuable insights on the importance of focusing on customer requirements, the benefits of working with both startups and large companies, and the significance of scalability in defense innovation.
If you're interested in learning more about AeroVironment, their role in the Replicator initiative, and the future of autonomy in defense, this episode is a must-listen.
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Background:
In late 2023, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kath Hicks announced a new initiative called Replicator. It's an effort to accelerate the production and delivery at scale of what's known as All Domain Attritable Autonomy (or ADA2) systems. A few weeks ago, the Pentagon announced their first buy in the Replicator initiative. It's AeroVironment's Switchblade, a loitering munition that's been around for years and most recently has seen significant action in the Ukrainian battlefield.
About AeroVironment
AeroVironment is a publicly traded company that’s been around for over 50 years, while remaining fairly small. The company focuses on autonomous systems, from sub-launched all the way to the surface of Mars (they made the Mars Ingenuity Helicopter!).
About Kara
Kara is unique in that she’s worked across government and the private sector, as well as a variety of defense tech companies large and small. After graduate school she went directly into the government, and married into the military. She talks about her time working at “big companies like Booz Allen Hamilton” (and Thompson Reuters and then small companies “where we're all still using our personal gmails to try to get a sam.gov registration set up.” She has an impressive startup track record, having worked at Shift5, Volansi, Palo Alto Networks, and Istari Digital, to name a few. All of this positioned her to understand what it takes to win programs big and small.
The Ukraine Impact: Drones are the new IEDs
“We wouldn't be all talking about unmanned systems or uncrewed systems…if there hadn't been a conflict in Ukraine.”
Kara compares the paradigm shift underway to the Iraq and Afghanistan conflict, when the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) threat first emerged. It shook the military, and we had to recognize that kinetic capabilities existed that cost a fraction of the systems we had to defense against them. We are seeing the same in Ukraine, as FPV drones are taking out far more expensive, exquisite systems. Combine this with rapid advances in autonomy, and the moment is ripe for the drone revolution.
About the Switchblade
We still don’t know a lot about the government’s Replicator buy decision, but we do know that the first system being procured is the Switchblade. The Switchblade is known as a “one-way drone;” if you use it right, it isn't coming back. The Switchblade 300 variant is an anti-personnel loitering munition: it can loiter and wait for a period of time until the target is in the right spot (see here). And then the Switchblade 600 is an anti-armor variant. It's much larger. And that's able to take out the Russian tanks. The platform itself isn’t new (in fact, it was used in Iraq and Afghanistan), but its a weapon whose time has come. That track record of use is actually a big reason why Kara believes the government had the faith and confidence in AeroVironment to support this “production-ready” initiative.
The Replicator Story
While the team at AeroVironment knew something was in the works, they found out about the initiative’s launch along with everyone else, when DepSecDef Hicks announced it. Kara didn’t despair over not knowing every detail at the beginning. “I think any time the DoD wants to do something like Replicator, when they want to move fast, industry is going to have to play a little catch up game to the government,” the said. “In my opinion, it is OK to go through a period of time of being like, I don't really fully understand this.”
As details came to light, it became clearer that the department had gone to the services to solicit needs and requirements from end users (rather than from industry alone).
As a result, the Replicator award “was not a solicitation that came out on SAM.gov.”
While Kara didn’t go into the specifics, we can surmise the government used the levers at its disposal - from sole source authority to the urgent operational needs (UON) process - to expedite the solicitation and make an award. They said they wanted “production-ready” materials, and so market research involved speaking with the warfighters using the material, rather than just taking someone’s word for it.
As Kara said, “you could put out an RFP tomorrow and get, you know, 30, 35 responses telling you that, you know, their technology is a TRL 8 and they're at a manufacturing readiness level of 8 as well, but they've never scaled before. And you then have to make some risk determinations. And the better way probably to go and talk to people who are actually using it and say, how's this working for you? If it isn't working, what does the company do?” So it wasn’t just about written responses, but about demonstrated past performance.
Looking Forward
The government is still holding its plans for Replicator close to the chest, but few (if any) think this procurement is a “one-and-done.” All-domain attritable autonomy is a broad, far-reaching category, so we expect much more from Replicator, very soon.
Thanks again to Kara for joining us!
If you’d like to learn more about AeroVironment, or to join the team, check out avinc.com!
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