Sentry Tower

The Sentry Tower is one of Anduril Industries ’ earliest products, a solar-powered autonomous surveillance mast that entered service around 2018. Designed to operate unattended in remote terrain, it combines mast-mounted EO/IR cameras with radar and on-device computer vision to detect, classify, and track people, vehicles, and small unmanned aircraft. It is built around the premise that a single operator at a remote console can monitor a stretch of border or perimeter that previously required dozens of fixed cameras and continuous live attention.

The tower carries a daylight and thermal camera turret with a radar at the top of an extendable mast, with battery storage and a solar array at the base, allowing months of unattended operation off-grid. Edge AI processes the sensor feeds locally, so the unit reports identified objects rather than streaming raw video — keeping bandwidth low enough that towers can run on satellite links in areas without fixed infrastructure. Detections feed into Anduril’s Lattice software, the same command-and-control layer that ties together the company’s Ghost helicopter, Anvil counter-drone interceptor, and Roadrunner systems.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been the largest known customer, fielding hundreds of towers along the southern border under the Department of Homeland Security’s Autonomous Surveillance Tower programme, awarded to Anduril in 2020 and expanded several times since. The U.S. Marine Corps deploys the system for base perimeter and forward operating site security, and the UK Ministry of Defence purchased units following trials with the Royal Marines. Towers have also been reported in use at U.S. military installations overseas.

Anduril has iterated the platform several times, with newer variants emphasising counter-drone detection — adapting the radar and the AI classifier as small unmanned aircraft became a more prominent threat across conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. The company has framed the tower less as a standalone product than as an entry point into its broader Lattice ecosystem, with customers often adopting both together.

In the autonomous surveillance market the Sentry Tower competes with offerings from Elbit Systems, Teledyne FLIR, and a long tail of integrators of fixed-mast camera systems. Its distinguishing features are the volume already deployed on the U.S. border — a tangible reference for buyers — and the tightness of its coupling with Lattice, which lets Anduril sell its software stack alongside the hardware rather than as an aftermarket add-on.