Startup firms Mistral and Zoltix have won the U.S.-Singapore joint challenge on maritime and unmanned aerial systems, or UAS, defense innovation.
The event was the first collaboration between the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit and Singapore’s Ministry of Defence under a memorandum of understanding for defense innovation.
Challenge Winners
The first prize challenge involved identifying and scaling dual-use technologies to help ships stationed near the shore continuously detect, track, identify and disrupt unauthorized drones. Mistral won $80,000 for its counter-UAS Victus C2 Gateway offering.
The system features radio frequency sensors and kinetic and non-kinetic effects in a single package that meets the challenge’s operational requirements.
The Minstral technology is capable of integrating with existing defense systems, which ensures compatibility with operational tools and prevents the creation of proprietary silos.
The second prize challenge, won by Zoltix, required resilient communications with small commercial drones during humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, or HADR, missions.
The startup received $70,000 for its adaptive communication system that features radio operations via automatic sensing and self-adjustment and delivers spectrum activity insights.
The Zoltix technology allows small commercial drones to keep secure and stable connections amid RF-contested environments and dynamically sense and adjust frequencies. These capabilities make it critical to HADR missions and global navigation satellite system-challenged environments.
