Military funds Cohere’s multi-waveform RAN for drone detection

Cohere Technologies has won a $28 million military contract to build a multi-waveform Radio Access Network (RAN) prototype for detecting drones. The funding originates from the FutureG Office within the US Department of War. 

The project expands upon a National Science Foundation VINES Phase 2 initiative. Financial resources support the creation of a sovereign Integrated Sensing and Communications capability. This deployment utilises existing and future commercial 5G and 6G infrastructure to enable persistent aerial and ground surveillance. Network administrators and defense officials require this surveillance traffic to remain indistinguishable from ordinary cellular communications.

Integrating multi-waveform baseband architecture

Network administrators face the complex engineering task of running multiple baseband protocols upon a shared, open software stack. The multi-waveform physical layer demands simultaneous processing of traditional 4G and 5G Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing signals alongside Cohere’s Pulsone Technology.

Pulsone Technology relies on the Zak-Orthogonal Time Frequency and Space waveform to manage complex radio environments. Consolidating these components into a flexible, software-defined architecture delivers high-performance sensing capabilities to existing networks.

Ray Dolan, Chairman and CEO of Cohere Technologies, said:  “By combining our Pulsone Technology with conventional Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) in a flexible, software-defined architecture, we can deliver high-performance sensing that is affordable, scalable, and operationally invisible—exactly what is needed to counter the growing threat of sophisticated drone and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS).”

Overcoming high-Doppler sensing constraints

Standard modulation schemes suffer severe degradation in environments populated by high-velocity targets. The Department of War prioritises defense against fast-moving drone swarms over standard communication optimisation.

Tom Rondeau, Principal Director for FutureG, commented: “As a proven innovator with a demonstrated ability to build multi-waveform platforms, Cohere Technologies offered a clear path that we could move on immediately. Their OTFS modulation carries information directly in the sensing domain, delivering massive communications and sensing performance advantages in high-Doppler environments.

“This solution rapidly delivers critical ISAC capabilities while building on our ‘innovate-first’ posture, demonstrating the tremendous opportunity for innovation brought by the FutureG Open Centralized Unit Distributed Unit (OCUDU) platform.”

The multi-waveform system prototype accurately detects, classifies, tracks, and defeats drone threats moving at high speeds. The equipment operates strictly within commercial spectrum bands to ensure adversaries cannot distinguish military sensing activity from normal civilian cellular communications.

Processing Delay-Doppler data streams

Baseband hardware is required that is capable of instantaneous data processing without introducing processing latency into the communication pipeline. The contract outlines the mandatory development of a Layered Inference Sensing system.

This dedicated software component converts raw Delay-Doppler data into real-time 3D tracking coordinates. The resulting output stream includes automatic target classification and algorithmic confidence scoring to aid human operators in identifying specific aerial threats.

Evaluating this data stream demands rigorous field testing under diverse geographic conditions. Cohere will build a dedicated ‘Mobile Test Platform’ to test bi-static and multi-static sensing configurations physically. Outdoor test environments subject mono-static, bi-static, and multi-static sensing setups to realistic environmental interference and radio frequency noise.

Structuring open platform compliance

Implementing proprietary waveform technology within open standards requires strict adherence to overarching framework guidelines established by defense technical authorities. The finalised system must achieve full compliance with the FutureG Open Centralized Unit Distributed Unit specifications.

Engineers must architect the software stack to satisfy comprehensive zero-trust security mandates designed to protect internal communication pathways. Implementing the Open Centralized Unit Distributed Unit architecture demands precise temporal synchronisation between the physical radio hardware and the centralised software processing cores. The FutureG mandate requires hardware vendors to decouple baseband processing from antenna assemblies.

Dolan stated the project award validates the company’s long-term vision of constructing future-proof wireless infrastructure serving both national security and commercial markets. The contract tasks government technical authorities and specific program partners with executing the work directly alongside Cohere engineers to ensure strict alignment.

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