Seekr has launched the beta testing of SeekrGeo, a geospatial reasoning engine. SeekrGeo provides advanced geospatial intelligence to enterprises and government agencies, accelerating actionable insights with launch partner Wyvern to deliver hyperspectral imaging capabilities.
Wyvern, a hyperspectral imaging and Earth observation data company, provides a comprehensive licensing agreement as Seekr’s inaugural data partner. The alliance accelerates enterprise access to scalable, high-resolution hyperspectral imaging powered by AI-driven analysis that can reason, detect changes over time, and identify meaningful patterns in activity for both national security and commercial use cases including wildland fire management, supply chain intelligence, and countless other actionable VLM-based insights.
As geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) grows to a projected $63B market by 2030, the gap between data availability and usable intelligence continues to widen. Bringing together Wyvern data and Seekr technology fills the gap in the market, giving enterprises and government customers a way to both access multimodal hyperspectral data, and synthesize intelligence and actionable insights with SeekrGeo’s Remote Sensing Foundation Model built for multimodal understanding, contextual reasoning, and autonomous analysis.
“Our first SeekrGeo customers required the use of Hyperspectral imaging to solve the most complex recognition problems. We recognized Wyvern for their best-in-class Hyperspectral LEO constellation and are very pleased to be working with them,” said Rob Clark, Seekr president.
“The biggest barrier to hyperspectral adoption has never been the data, it’s been the difficulty of turning that data into applications,” said Chris Robson, Co-Founder and CEO of Wyvern. “Seekr’s geospatial foundation model changes the equation entirely. Instead of needing months of specialized development work, our customers will be able to build new applications in a fraction of the time at scale.”
A second MOU was signed with Elistair to introduce tethered unmanned aerial systems into Milanion’s ground and maritime architecture.
The agreements focus on maintaining operational capability in environments affected by electronic warfare, GNSS denial, jamming, spoofing and cyber interference, with technical integration work scheduled to begin after the exhibition and demonstrations planned for later in 2026.
The agreement with NovAtel covers land, maritime and air domains and focuses on operations in contested environments where electronic warfare, GNSS denial and cyber interference are present.
Milanion linked the partnerships to requirements raised by defense delegations at WDS 2026 for unmanned systems that remain operational without dependence on vulnerable networks and that support sovereign-ready integration.
Technical integration discussions with both companies are scheduled to begin immediately after the exhibition. Joint development pathways and capability demonstrations are planned later in 2026 as part of a broader connected autonomy architecture.
Milanion Group was founded in 2020 and is headquartered in the UK, with manufacturing in Abu Dhabi. The company develops autonomous and optionally manned systems for military and security missions across land, sea, and air.
The MOU with NovAtel will embed NovAtel assured-PNT and anti-jam technologies into Milanion assets to maintain navigation accuracy and mission integrity during GNSS denial or interference. The integration supports secure routing, guidance stability, and targeting precision even when GPS signals are degraded or disrupted. This capability is relevant for unmanned ground vehicles, maritime conversions, and airborne systems operating in electronically contested theatres. Milanion links the functionality to survivability and operational continuity during electronic warfare and cyber-disruption scenarios.
By combining assured navigation with persistent ISR and resilient communications, the company aims to maintain autonomous mission performance across multi-domain deployments. The approach integrates sensing, navigation, and communications into a unified architecture to address contested-environment requirements identified at WDS 2026.
The platform now supports multi-sensor, multi-drone detection in real time for counter UAS applications. It delivers true threat assessment and early warning — detecting, tracking and identifying — to empower on-site and remote operators to make split-second decisions regarding airspace activity. The platform is sensor agnostic and easily integrated into existing systems through open APIs.
The update dramatically improves assessing risk from small, low-flying drones in complex airspace, such as public events, critical infrastructure and battlespaces.
The platform
The MatrixSpace AI Platform consists of MatrixSpace AiEdge, the company’s intelligent sensor operating system, and MatrixSpace AiCloud, a software-as-a-service that collects data from AiEdge-enabled sensors for a unified view of airspace activity. Unlike other offerings retrofitted for AI, MatrixSpace AiEdge and AiCloud are AI-native, making information rapidly actionable and easier to comprehend.
MatrixSpace AiEdge, embedded in every MatrixSpace system, provides actionable intelligence at the point of sensor data collection. It detects, classifies and tracks multiple object types, removing clutter to present a relevant picture of aerial activities, while fusing feeds from different sensors.
AiEdge fuses detections from MatrixSpace radars with complementary sensors such as Remote ID and ADS-B into a single, real-time track. By correlating multi-sensor data at the edge, AiEdge creates a common data representation and cues PTZ (pan-tilt-zoom) cameras for rapid visual confirmation, passing high-confidence tracks to the cloud for enterprise-level analysis.
Sitting above distributed AiEdge deployments, MatrixSpace AiCloud simplifies the management of geographically diverse sensor networks into a single, unified view. Instead of a bank of monitors displaying individual sensor feeds, AiCloud provides operators with clear visibility into low-airspace activity, alerts, and warnings across all protected sites — accessible on any device.
MatrixSpace AiCloud combines fused, real-time data from radar, optical, ADS-B and Remote ID sensors to deliver consistent object tracking and actionable threat intelligence at scale. Within AiCloud, whitelisting and threat classification determine whether objects are friendly, unknown, or hostile, enabling fast, coordinated operator response. Local sensors continue operating autonomously when cloud connectivity is disrupted, with all activity synchronized for review once connectivity is restored.
We usually look for what’s new, with innovative drones emerging and gaining traction in commercial and military applications, but this month, news of the termination of a leading UAV program has sparked interest.
The British Army’s Watchkeeper drone program has long been the subject of criticism over development delays, cost overruns and poor performance. Recent reports that the Watchkeeper fleet could be retired as early as 2025 — though that timeline may now slip to 2027 — have renewed scrutiny of the troubled effort. Perhaps a review of the story behind this drone adventure may be in order.
The UK has been involved with drone operations going back into the 1960s, giving this military force deep experience and expertise in the field. Political support has enabled significant investment over time. When the Watchkeeper program was rolling in 2004-05, the US was moving toward the MQ-9 Reaper project, and military forces around the world were building their own mil-spec UAVs, mostly for surveillance to support military ground operations.
At that time, few commercial drones existed beyond radio-controlled model aircraft flown by hobbyists. The idea was growing in China at that time for DJI and quad-copters, so these multi-use UAVs eventually emerged, and have led to a multitude of outfits elsewhere also making commercially available drones.
When the Watchkeeper program took shape in 2004, developing a custom platform was essentially the only way for the UK to obtain a medium-altitude ISTAR intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) drone tailored to its requirements. The Ministry of Defence identified Israel-based Elbit Systems, which produced the Hermes 450 military drone, as a close match. The program was built around an extensively modified version of that aircraft, with the goal of bringing production to the UK
Hermes 450 (Photo: Nehemia Gershuni-Aylho) Watchkeeper-X export version (Photo: U-tacS)
In 2005, the U.K. Ministry of Defence awarded a £775 million contract to U-TacS, a joint venture between Thales UK and Elbit Systems, for the design, manufacture and support of 54 Watchkeeper WK-450 drones. The modifications involved making the UAV all-weather capable, including Thales integrated radar/GPS system for automated landing and take-off (Magic-ATOLS), Thales MASTER SAR/GMTI radar, dual electro-optical/IR cameras, laser designator, and tweaks to the Line-of-Sight radio system, with a satellite link option. Nevertheless, the range of the radio limits operation to within less than 100 miles of the mobile base-station, but it did provide a high-bandwidth, secure, direct, unobstructed wireless link for control and real-time video and targeting data back from the vehicle.
Cost overruns and delays pushed the first flight to 2008 in Israel. Production of the WK-450 was then established at Thales UK, formerly Racal Electronics. The technology transfer between the two companies, separated by more than 2,000 miles, operating across different corporate cultures and exchanging proprietary material, proved more difficult and time-consuming than anticipated.
The program delivered its first aircraft in 2014. Four drone systems flew in Afghanistan during the British troop withdrawal, logging a total of just 140 flight hours. Performance fell short of expectations, particularly the system’s all-weather capability, which proved inadequate in Afghan conditions. The U.S. military encountered similar challenges with sand contamination of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft during early operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As time rolled by, Watchkeeper found some use in Cyprus and in the UK, mostly for training, but problems continued. Between 2014 and 2022 eight vehicles crashed, and most have presumably been written off. Others have apparently experienced unplanned ‘contact with ground’ in more recent times. Faith in the now pretty old drone system has waned with the British forces — even recent political pressure to hand over the remaining fleet to Ukraine has been rebuffed by the Army — maybe too many problems with which to coach Ukraine troops. Watchkeeper is apparently now dismantled for the UK, along with the whole £1 billion investment. But not without gaining a lot of knowledge and operational experience, however an expensive lesson none the less.
The UK has operated MQ-9A Reapers in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria for more than 18 years, but after the Royal Air Force’s success with this US drone, these too have been retired in favor of the new MQ-9B Protector. The Protector has been customized and brought up to civilian certification standards by the manufacturer General Atomics. There have been similar sad programs with many ground, marine, and air projects around the world, but this has been such a visible and unhappy tale, it’s sad to see it end, but it’s probably a good thing so that other newer, more promising projects can get funding and become successful.
Almost in the same breath, another UK company has already been supplying unmanned cargo aircraft to Ukrainian forces for more than three years. Windracer ULTRA is a twin-prop aircraft that can lift 330 lb for up to 620 miles, with 10 hours of endurance at a ceiling of up to 13,000ft. A newer version can reportedly travel twice as far with more payload.
In Ukraine, the drone has been supplying front-line troop emplacements on a regular basis. The UK has been using ULTRA for surveillance and parachute drop re-supply, middle-mile parcel and cargo delivery to remote destinations, and for aerial surveys in Antarctica and elsewhere.
So, a commercial start-up got there on its own, no direct government funding other than contracted support, and apparently no JV with another company! So does 100% government funded development work better than setting up on your own, borrowing a bunch of cash, and doing it yourself? Mil-spec stuff is special with a limited market, so it’s unlikely that governments will ever be able to pick up finished products that fulfil all needs, but as the U.S. is proving with its bulk buy of off-the-shelf small one-way UAVs, these can meet many requirements.
Contract strengthens the company’s growing portfolio of U.S. government-funded PNT initiatives
TrustPoint has been awarded a $1.9 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Direct-to-Phase II contract focused on adapting and upgrading TrustPoint’s commercial C-band positioning navigation and timing (PNT) payload to integrate with U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) architectures and meet advanced government requirements.
The Air Force Research Laboratory and AFWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Air Force, have partnered to streamline the SBIR and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) process by accelerating the small business experience through faster proposal to award timelines, changing the pool of potential applicants by expanding opportunities to small business, and eliminating bureaucratic overhead by implementing process improvement changes in contract execution.
The Air Force began offering the Open Topic SBIR/STTR program in 2018, which expanded the range of funded innovations. Now, TrustPoint will accelerate its journey to create and provide innovative capabilities that will strengthen the national defense of the U.S.
TrustPoint is developing a low size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C) payload designed to address the U.S. Space Force’s growing need for tactically responsive and resilient space capabilities. The upgraded payload will bolster resistance to GPS jamming and spoofing, and expand the operational resilience of PNT in contested environments — an essential requirement for future proliferated space architectures and for the autonomous systems, including drones, that depend on trusted timing and navigation.
The effort will culminate in laboratory testing in collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), setting the stage for potential Phase III deployment opportunities.
The award marks TrustPoint’s fifth Phase II SBIR in 18 months, spanning projects with the Air Force, Space Force and Navy, and adds to the company’s participation in government-funded PNT initiatives.
Project establishes innovative test framework to help UK operators, providers and suppliers adopt best practice and benchmark success
Spirent Communications, now part of Keysight Technologies, has partnered with the European Space Agency (ESA) to lead an initiative aimed at increasing the resilience of positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) systems used in critical national infrastructure. Under the initiative, Spirent and partners will deliver a comprehensive test framework to drive measurable resilience in PNT systems for users, operators and providers of critical infrastructure in the United Kingdom.
Supported by Element 2 of ESA’s Navigation Innovation and Support Program (NAVISP), the initiative is designed to raise awareness and improve resilient PNT test and assessment by providing a pathway to assess, validate and rate PNT equipment and services used in critical national infrastructure. The 2023 UK government report The Economic Impact on the UK of a Disruption to GNSS estimates a seven-day GNSS outage could cost the UK economy £7.6 billion. Critical infrastructure is heavily dependent on satellite-based PNT systems and data.
“For years, organizations have been wrestling with a fundamental challenge: they know PNT resilience matters, but they do not have a clear way to measure it or benchmark their progress,” explained Mark Holbrow, vice president of Engineering and Product Development at Spirent Positioning. “This new initiative changes that by building the tools and frameworks that let critical national infrastructure operators quantify resilience, track it, and improve it over time, and we’re proud that ESA has entrusted Spirent to lead this exciting three-year project.”
The Resiliency in Critical National Infrastructure will support the UK government’s resilient PNT strategy by enabling access to rigorous, quantitative test evidence and operational insights that help evaluate and validate PNT systems across essential sectors. It will comprise three core components:
Spirent PNT Alliance brings together companies, academic research partners, and PNT professional and government bodies to identify, develop and cater resilience services for critical infrastructure. It will include the Royal Institute of Navigation and other strategic partners to complement their activities and help build a resilient PNT ecosystem in the UK by commercializing best practices and connecting infrastructure operators with new technologies and test approaches.
PNT Shopfront showcases solutions that aid the adoption of resilient PNT and help to assure regulatory compliance for critical PNT dependencies.
PNT Resiliency Health Check will enable independent appraisal of GNSS equipment capability against general performance, resilience and security criteria. Annual health check assessments will help organizations understand their dependencies, identify vulnerabilities, and track improvements over time, with a technical framework that scores resilience against standard benchmarks to create a pathway toward industry-wide test methodologies.
“Intentional and malicious disruptions to GNSS are now a daily occurrence, and are pervasive in the aviation and maritime sector,” said Ramsey Faragher, director of the institute. “The Royal Institute of Navigation is focused on raising awareness to these issues and in promoting the needs for improved resilience against such disruptions, especially within Critical National Infrastructure. Our Best Practice Guidelines emphasize the criticality of thorough testing in order to verify resilience and to help protect against both existing and future attack vectors. The UK is well placed to take a lead in this area, and well placed to inspire other nations to follow suit. We are really pleased to see initiatives like these from our corporate partners, and we look forward to supporting them.”
Successful deployment at APEX validates the technology as a crucial inertial-sensor stack for assured PNT on the modern battlefield.
Advanced Navigation successfully demonstrated in April 2025 its inertial-centric intelligent navigation as part of the U.S. Army’s All-Domain Persistent Experiment (APEX), underscoring the ability to deliver reliable, high-accuracy navigation in GNSS-degraded and -denied conditions.
Designed for the DDIL (Degraded, Denied, Intermittent and Low-bandwidth), APEX provided Advanced Navigation with an operationally relevant testbed to evaluate the performance of its Boreas D90 fiber-optic gyroscope (FOG) inertial navigation system (INS) when fused with complementary aiding sensors, including the laser velocity sensor (LVS) and a wheel-speed encoder. The results reaffirm Advanced Navigation’s intelligent software-defined approach as a resilient foundation for APNT on the modern battlefield.
“Assured PNT is non-negotiable. The only path to operational advantage is an intelligent, multi-sensor fusion anchored by a resilient inertial core. We deliver this with our sophisticated AdNav Intelligence software,” said Chris Shaw, Advanced Navigation CEO. “Now in our third year participating in this U.S. Army program, APEX continues to challenge our systems under realistic electronic warfare conditions.”
Boreas D90. At the center of the architecture is the Boreas D90, a strategic-grade FOG INS that serves as the “nervous system” of the navigation stack. Unlike conventional systems reliant on GNSS or magnetic compasses, Boreas D90 determines true North through gyrocompassing, using ultra-sensitive fiber-optic gyroscopes to detect the Earth’s rotation. This enables independent, high-confidence navigation, even when external GNSS signals are compromised.
AdNav Intelligence. AdNav Intelligence software continuously validates all sensor inputs, adjusts in real-time to the operational environment, and autonomously counteracts spoofing and jamming. The sophisticated software can adapt in real time to respond to incoming threats, dynamically weighing the input from each sensor to make real-time adjustments on which sensor to rely on based on their reliability scores, environmental conditions, and operational context.
Demonstration setup
During APEX, Boreas D90 with AdNav Intelligence was integrated with both a laser velocity sensor and a wheel-speed encoder aboard a four-wheel-drive vehicle. The demonstration was conducted during night operations at a site in rural New Mexico, under a created environment of complex and emerging electronic warfare threats with GNSS jamming.
The Boreas D90 was fused with Advanced Navigation’s advanced infrared laser sensor that measures ground-relative 3D velocity with exceptional precision. LVS performs reliably on both ground and airborne platforms regardless of environmental conditions or the availability of visual references, as long as it maintains a clear line of sight to the ground or a stationary surface. By providing direct, drift-free velocity measurements, the LVS ensures continuous, high-precision mobility and enhances navigation resilience even in the most extreme contested GNSS environments.
This configuration demonstrated dead-reckoning accuracy, achieving a 0.012% error per distance traveled (7.5 m over 65 km) in the same contested conditions.
Wheel-speed encoder. Wheel-speed encoders offer a rugged and cost-effective source of motion data, measuring wheel rotation to determine ground speed and distance traveled. Their design ensures quick integration across tactical platforms. Ideal for firm terrain and structured routes, they provide dependable dead-reckoning performance when GNSS is denied, making them a practical choice for missions that demand reliability over complexity.
When paired with a wheel-speed encoder, the Boreas D90 delivered reliable dead-reckoning performance useful for platforms operating in predictable or structured environments. Across the demonstration, the Boreas D90–wheel-encoder configuration maintained strong navigation continuity, achieving a 0.018% error per distance traveled (11.7 m over 65 km), without reliance on GNSS, even under deliberate jamming.
Next Steps for APNT
For Advanced Navigation, the results from APEX show significant potential for a range of current and future defense applications. The technologies exceeded the team’s expectations, demonstrating the level of accuracy and operational reliability required for successful navigation under GNSS-denied and -degraded conditions.
Integrating INS with next-generation photonics promises to further advance capability, resilience and adaptability on the battlefield, Advanced Navigation said.
About the U.S. Army’s APEXevent
Previously known as the Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Assessment Experiment (PNTAX), the sixth annual APEX event was held at the U.S. Army’s premier military test range, designed to replicate the complex, contested conditions that forces are expected to face in future multi-domain operations.
The next experiment will include partners within the United States Air Force’s 746th Test Squadron and the Joint Navigation Warfare Center, U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, and the Army Test and Evaluation Command. Advanced Navigation expects to take part 2026.
APEX provides a rigorous environment for evaluating mission resilience across a broader spectrum of technologies. While resilient PNT remains a core component, the event extends to integrated sensing capabilities, advanced communications architectures, data transport, and edge processing. These systems are evaluated under threat-informed, operationally realistic scenarios that reflect the evolving demands placed on modern military platforms in GPS-degraded or -denied environments.
Drones planned for a New Year’s light show in Budva, Montenegro, were deliberately shot down, according to an analysis that Croatian company Mirnovec provided news outlet Vijesti.
Mirnovec’s owner told Vijesti the culprit used an anti-drone jammer, a gun of the type used by security forces.
The document “GNSS RF interference analysis: Incident during a drone show,” summarizes technical findings related to a loss of GNSS navigation during the show. About 15 seconds after the launch of 600 drones from the parking lot in front of the Port Authority began, they began to return. Some drones fell into the sea and some collided with drones taking off. After 40 seconds, the operator stopped the launch. The drones fell for another 20 seconds.
The U.S. Space Force has ended an exploratory effort to add smaller, lower-cost navigation satellites to strengthen the existing GPS constellation, reports Space News.
The Space Force does not plan to move forward with on-orbit demonstrations of industy-designed smallsats under the Resilient GPS (R-GPS) program, which began in 2024. In September of that year, the Space Force selected Astranis, L3Harris Technologies and Sierra Space to develop concepts for small, cost-effective navigation satellites to increase GPS resilience, using an expedited “quick start” contract process.
But funding for the next phase of the program was not included in the fiscal year 2026 budget because of higher Department of the Air Force priorities, according to the report.
R-GPS was part of a broader push by the Pentagon to diversify satellite architectures amid concerns that spacecraft are vulnerable to interference or attack.
The Space Force has not said whether it plans to pursue alternative positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) efforts in place of R-GPS.
Lawmakers have repeatedly raised concerns about GPS vulnerability and have called for studies examining commercial low Earth orbit navigation services as potential complements or backups to GPS.
Dimetor is providing its NAVSentry airspace situational awareness system to the World Economic Forum annual meeting, in support of the Austrian Armed Forces. The meeting is taking place this week in Davos, Switzerland, close to the Austrian border.
NAVSentry is an AI-powered platform for detecting GNSS disruptions in real time, combining different technology layers and securing position, navigation and timing (PNT) data across autonomous and crewed systems from multiple data sources.
The system is providing insights into the integrity of GNSS signals to strengthen the Austrian Armed Forces’ ability to monitor, secure and protect the airspace against threats, including including jamming and spoofing attempts targeting the airspace and critical PNT infrastructure.
The enhanced situational awareness strengthens the ability to detect anomalies, assess potential threats, and coordinate protective measures across both the physical and cyber domains.
“It’s a compelling example of how modern defense increasingly also builds on trusted civilian–military technology partnerships to safeguard critical events,” said Brigadier-General Friedrich Teichmann, commander, Space Services, Austrian Armed Forces.
The Federal Aviation Administration on Jan. 16 issued a warning to pilots to “exercise caution” when flying over the Pacific Ocean in parts of Latin America due to potential military activities. Areas cited include the eastern Pacific Ocean near Mexico, Central America and parts of South America.
A series of Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) issued by the FAA state, “Potential risks exist for aircraft at all altitudes, including during overflight and the arrival and departure phases of flight.” The alerts are in effect for 60 days. NOTAMs are issued routinely in any region where there are hostilities nearby.
The nearly $1 million contract covers delivery of approximately 100 dual-antenna GPS/GNSS compasses for land-based applications.
Arazim Navigation Systems, an Israeli manufacturer of inertial navigation systems, has received a new order valued at nearly $1 million from an Israeli defense customer. The order includes 100 units of the HPLS-2G GPS/GNSS compass, designed to provide heading and attitude information for static land-based systems using dual-antenna GPS technology.
According to Arazim, the HPLS-2G NFS system is a rugged, MIL-STD-compliant device built to operate in harsh environmental conditions and hostile operational environments.
“This continued trust represents more than another contract; it reflects confidence in the reliability, performance, and ongoing development of our navigation solutions,” Sason Noama, CEO and founder of Arazim Navigation Systems, said. “For years, our technology has supported critical operations where precision and resilience are essential. This order further underscores Arazim’s role as a trusted provider of advanced navigation and situational awareness systems for defense and security organizations.”
