Teledyne FLIR Rogue 1 Loitering Munitions Unveiled
Earlier this month, at SOF Week, Teledyne FLIR Defense, best known for thier thermal imaging systems, unveiled the Rogue 1 Loitering Munition System.
The official presentation of the small UAS (sUAS) took place at the Special Operations Forces (SOF) Week convention in Tampa, Florida, on May 7. Rouge 1 was first delivered to U.S. Special Operations Command for evaluation under their Ground Organic Precision Strike Systems (GOPSS) program in 2022. Since then the platform has been tweaked to meet the end-customer demands but also eliminate any issues with the system.
The platform was designed to conduct precision strikes against moving and stationary armored targets, soft-skinned vehicles, and dismounted threats. An advanced fuzing system on Rogue 1 features a first-of-its-kind mechanical interrupt that allows the sUAS to be safely recovered and reused. This feature has not been present in loitering munitions systems such as WB Group’s Warmate or AeroVironment Switchblade.
In April, Teledyne FLIR announced the U.S. Marine Corps had selected it for an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contract worth up to $249 million for the Organic Precision Fires-Light (OPF-L) program. The company is offering Rogue 1 as its OPF-L platform and will deliver an initial order of 127 systems to the Marines later this summer. Organic Precision Fires-Light is a new system that provides rifle squads and platoons with a man-packable “organic, loitering, precision strike capability to engage the enemy beyond the line of sight.”
The expansion of the product portfolio by Teledyne FLIR fits into a pattern of military industry focusing on drones and unmanned weapon systems. With continuing digitalization of the battlefield demanding modern solutions such direction of development is promising and will deliver even more systems in the foreseeable future.