Guardian — first system
It hears the aircraft, and the hand on the controller.
Guardian is a passive radio-frequency detection, direction-finding and tracking system. It converts the emissions that unmanned aircraft depend on into a real-time picture an operator can act on.
- Class
- RF sensing
- Emission
- None — passive
- Output
- Track and bearing
- Status
- In development
01
What it is
A sensing unit, an operator application, and the interfaces between them.
The whole chain, from an antenna to a decision, inside one modular unit.
An array captures the spectrum. Real-time processing reduces it to features. Learned models decide what the emitters are. Phase processing resolves where they are. Tracking works out what they are doing. The operator sees a map with something on it, and a reason to believe the something is real.
- Detection
- Passive wideband monitoring of the bands used by drone control, telemetry and video links
- Classification
- Signature matching and machine-learned inference, with anomaly detection for unknown emitters
- Localisation
- Phase-based direction of arrival, referenced to true north; triangulation across networked units
- Tracking
- Multi-target association, trajectory estimation and threat scoring over time
- Visualisation
- On-unit display for field diagnostics; full map-based operator application on a connected machine
- Integration
- Documented API and secure transport for command centres, radar and other security infrastructure
02
What the operator sees
Spectrum when it is needed, and a map the rest of the time.
The default view is geographic: the unit's own position, the bearing to each emitter of interest, and the track it has built up. Spectrum and diagnostics are one step away for the operator who wants to see the evidence.
Contacts can be marked friend or foe and the marking persists across restarts. History can be replayed. The interface is designed to be legible to someone standing up, outdoors, in a hurry.
03
Capabilities
What the system is being built to do.
- 01
Detection and tracking
Identify unmanned aircraft in real time from their control, telemetry and video emissions, and follow them as they move.
- 02
Operator location
Because the controller link is part of what Guardian detects, the person flying the aircraft can be localised — often the response that actually resolves an incursion.
- 03
Classification and prioritisation
Separate emitters of interest from ambient spectrum traffic, identify the airframe family where the signature is known, and score threats so the operator sees the important one first.
- 04
Autonomous alerting
Detection, classification and notification run without supervision. The system asks for attention rather than requiring it continuously.
- 05
Recording and replay
Raw I/Q capture of recent activity supports post-event analysis, evidentiary review and retraining against signals encountered in the field.
- 06
Networked coverage
Multiple units share time and position reference, intersect bearings for geolocation, and extend coverage across a site or a frontage.
04
Deployment
One architecture, three shapes.
- 01
Single node
One unit covering a site, producing detection, classification, bearing and track. Suitable for a fixed installation, a mobile platform or a temporary deployment.
- 02
Networked array
Two or more units, GNSS-synchronised, triangulating position across bearings and covering a wider area with overlapping fields of regard.
- 03
Integrated layer
Guardian as the RF contribution to a multi-sensor picture, cueing radar or EO/IR and feeding an existing command and control system.
05
Status
Stated accurately, because the alternative is discovered later.
Guardian is in active development. We are building toward a field-validated system and pilot deployments with early customers, and we would rather have that conversation now, with the people who will use it, than after the design is fixed.
If you are evaluating counter-drone capability, we are interested in your requirements, your environment and your constraints — even where our answer today is not yet complete.