Modern military operations increasingly depend on the ability to quickly collect, transport and act on information across contested battlespaces. Connected autonomous airborne sensors, paired with resilient communications, rapidly push edge collected information across the network, enabling commanders and warfighters to maintain situational awareness even in highly complex or contested environments.
L3Harris Technologies and Skydio Inc. are collaborating to deliver this crucial integrated capability to the warfighter. The companies have brought together Skydio’s autonomous drone technologies with L3Harris’ radios and Wraith® waveform to maintain uninterrupted command-and-control links, ensuring the delivery of mission-critical data and position location information.
“Our work with Skydio demonstrates how we can connect best-of-breed technologies and resilient networks to give warfighters the right information at the right time,” said Faisal Munir, President, Mission Critical Communications, Communications & Spectrum Dominance, L3Harris. “This partnership directly facilitates the warfighter’s ability to continue to communicate, fly UAS assets and affect threats in electronic warfare-constrained environments.”
Leveraging the companies' open-system architectures, L3Harris waveforms and the Falcon® IV embeddable radios have been integrated with Skydio’s X10D drone to provide layered anti-jam protection and electronic warfare capability. The collaboration also takes advantage of the more than 150,000 fielded tactical radios currently within U.S. and allied inventories that are capable of hosting the Wraith waveform. With the addition of the new Wraith Shield™ waveform, the radios can also scan the spectrum, detect threats and neutralize adversarial drones.
The collaboration reflects a broader shift toward open, interoperable architectures that allow defense customers to rapidly incorporate new systems, platforms and communication devices into connected nodes across the battlespace at the speed of the mission. It’s also another example of both company’s commitment to partner across the defense technology ecosystem to deliver the advanced solutions that today’s threat environment demands.