The United States military has awarded a $28 million contract to California startup Cohere Technologies to turn ordinary cellular networks into covert radar that can spot drone swarms.
The deal is small in cash terms but large in intent. It backs a wireless method that could let commercial 4G, 5G and future 6G masts double as sensors, tracking objects in the air while looking to outsiders like normal phone traffic. For the Pentagon, the appeal is defence against drones, a threat that has reshaped modern battlefields.
The money comes from the FutureG office within the US Department of War, the renamed Defense Department. FutureG runs on a budget of about $500 million and hunts next generation wireless technology with military and commercial value. Its aim here is a capability the military calls integrated sensing and communications: using the radio signals that networks already broadcast to detect, classify and track drones, then cue a response, all within commercial spectrum so adversaries cannot easily tell sensing from ordinary calls.
The award is also a bet on one company’s technology over the industry mainstream. Cohere champions a waveform known as orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS), which the cellular sector passed over for 5G in favour of the older Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) standard that runs today’s networks. FutureG’s principal director, Tom Rondeau, has now signalled a preference for OTFS in sensing. Cohere says its waveform is about four times more accurate than OFDM given the same spectrum and conditions.
That choice cuts against Ericsson and Nokia, both of which have poured investment into OFDM. As recently as last month, senior Ericsson figures argued that bolting OTFS onto networks for sensing would be more trouble for operators than keeping the waveform they already use.
Rondeau framed the urgency plainly. “We required a partner with the right technology ready today,” he said, pointing to pressure to move fast against drone swarms. The prototype is modest, but analysts note the $28 million could open the door to a far larger programme to fit sensing across American mobile sites, work that would draw in big carriers such as AT&T and Verizon.
Cohere, based in San Jose, will build the system on an open software stack and test it outdoors in several sensing setups, extending a project it had already run under the National Science Foundation. The company points to civilian uses as well, such as air taxis, smart city traffic and public safety. Chief executive Ray Dolan called the contract a milestone for wireless technology that serves both defence and commercial markets.
For now this is research, not a fielded system. Whether Cohere’s waveform can unseat the entrenched standard for 6G sensing is a fight the industry has yet to settle.
