The AID (Innovation Defense Lab), the French laboratory for innovation in the defense sector, has announced the selection of a consortium led by MBDA for the projects of the LARINAE call. LARINAE aims at the rapid and joint development of a remotely controlled munition capable of neutralizing an armored target within a radius of fifty kilometres.
After winning the first tender for the COLIBRI project, MBDA has consolidated its position in the field of remotely controlled munitions with the selection of its MUTANT concept, based on a "Minimum Viable Product" approach and focused on user requirements. This reaffirms MBDA's choice for an agile approach that meets the Armed Forces' need for a fast and innovative sovereign solution.
This new enhanced and guided munition benefits from the technologies developed by MBDA over the years, in particular through the AKERON family, to provide high-performance results aimed at the neutralization of armored moving targets, while ensuring operational reliability and complete safety.
In order to produce a munition with the best cost-performance compromise, MUTANT also incorporates the latest technological breakthroughs in the field of civilian and military drones.
Designed as a true weapon system integrating a man-in-the-loop approach, this solution will provide capabilities complementary to those of land combat missiles in terms of speed on target, maneuverability, endurance, range and saturation capability of the enemy. This remotely controlled munition, which offers beyond line-of-sight attack capabilities, is therefore a natural complement to the MBDA product portfolio of battlefield effectors, such as AKERON MP and LP.
The consortium follows the French Directive on Defense Programs 1618, which allows working together with the French General Staff and the DGA (Direction Générale de l'Armement) 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 foreseen in 2024 by the LARINAE contract will benefit from the work that MBDA has self-financed starting from 2022, which has already enabled the first flights of the MTO MUTANT with the Delair company. These advances will enable even faster progress and adaptations to meet the requirements for this new capability.
