Military operations rely on secure wireless networks for piloting drones, connecting sensors, and communicating, among other things. As modern warfare pushes further into the digital realm, governments, and military organizations heavily depend on wireless technology to support their increasingly complex network needs.

Military Wireless Networks At Threat

With Russia's war on Ukraine and the escalating war in the Middle East between Israel, Gaza, Hezbollah, and Iran, we are in a time of increased global conflict with unprecedented levels of electronic warfare, putting these secure wireless networks relied upon by military organizations at threat.

Military bases and critical facilities increasingly depend on RF wireless communications, from radars and cameras to operational and user communications. However, the proliferation of wireless devices and technologies poses significant challenges to spectrum management.

Common spectrum challenges include allocation errors, system malfunctions, interference, wireless threats, and the proliferation of new technologies.

For instance, jamming, a form of malicious interference with a wireless network, is now used by opponents to intentionally prevent Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cell phone networks, GPS systems, and radio signals from communicating in order to disrupt battle control. A transmitter tuned to the same frequency as the opponents' receiving equipment and with the same type of modulation can, with enough power, override any signal at the receiver.

Used as a wartime tactic, jamming can disrupt essential services or even bring down a network altogether in a denial of service (DOS) attack.

Real-time detection and alerting of critical events enables rapid response, saving lives and protecting borders.

Sensorz, founded by former Israeli IDF officers and experienced technology entrepreneurs Meier Friedland (CEO and co-founder) and Ziv Nuss (CTO and co-founder), first came to market with its wireless observability platform in 2022. Initially targeting providers and operators of private 5G-enabled networks, Sensorz's platform offered these operators performance monitoring capabilities to ensure optimal and undisrupted operation through real-time detection and alerting of critical events.

However, with the escalation of global conflict and war happening on its doorstep, the team at Sensorz piloted its focus, technology platform, and strong technical team with extensive RF/wireless offensive and defensive relevant experience toward combat use cases.

“Our founders have deep military experience with extensive expertise in electronic warfare and signal intelligence, so it is not that we were not engaged with the military from day one,” explains Lior Tal, VP of Strategy, Product, and Business Development at Sensorz.

Sensorz's platform offering, SWORD, is an electronic warfare/signals intelligence platform (EW/SIGNT) and a comprehensive solution for battlefield spectral awareness, dominance, and orchestration. Sensorz offers a multi-layered solution that supports RF spectrum sensing, signal discovery, and threat detection. It ensures the security and continuity of the RF and wireless infrastructure.

SWORD is capable of real-time detection and identification of radio frequency (RF) emitters. It accurately identifies autonomous platforms, guided munitions, wideband communications, and related countermeasures. SWORD can also detect emerging technologies and weapon systems to offer military commanders a tactical advantage.

"Real-time response on the battlefield is vital for dominance," says Lior. SWORD brings the concept of facial recognition into the RF domain, allowing military commanders to recognize and lock in on specific signals from different transmitters. Within the platform, we have a flexible orchestration engine that enables real-time loop closure --  building and managing a collection of complex and flexible response flows executed in real-time on almost any third-party system, such as anti-drone activation, jamming, intelligence gathering, altering systems, frequency changes, which then triggers and supports automated or manual response to events. It is both an intuitive and effective response mechanism."

One area of defense has deployed a SWORD platform to date, and the company plans to expand its deployment to many more systems in Q1 of 2025.

With military conflicts underway between Russia and Ukraine and in the Middle East spilling over into the Far East and China, countries worldwide are dramatically shoring up their defense budgets. Substantial investment is flowing into automated spectrum monitoring, which has until now been a blindspot for many military organizations.

An open software system, SWORD, is installed on a customer's site and can be connected to almost any RF receiver to enable a real-time, lightweight data stream (called spectrograms). A cellular or SattCom connection enables the RF receivers. This means that deployment in the field is simple, flexible, fast, and wire-free. Flexible installation is possible on a vessel, vehicle, airborne vehicles, or within a tactical team. By gathering comprehensive forensics information and optimizing data collection, military commanders have a comprehensive view of past events for investigation purposes.

Says Lior, “SWORD allows for understanding of the spectrum and control over the spectrum in real-time unlocking the ability for military commanders to respond in real time to events. This ability hasn’t existed until now. If you can alert civilians or even armed forces on the battlefield that a drone or missile has been launched - this information can save lives and protect borders.”

From seaside ports to battlefields, Sensorz offers real-time analysis and incident response.

The commercial market has poured billions of dollars into the research and development of standards-based 5G networks and has pulled ahead of Defense Department communications capabilities in technical and performance criteria. Sensorz is poised to capitalize on this opportunity by leveraging its relationship with Khasm Labs and its deep understanding of military and defense demands and use cases. It is also working with Khasm Labs on projects related to the company's initial area of focus - analysis and incident response within private 5G networks. For instance, Sensorz is part of the Khasm Lab's Tacoma Tideflats project to enable next-generation connectivity and enablement at the port.

With a team of 30, over 80 patents in its arsenal, and a $4.7M SEED round of investment, Sensorz is ready to grow and expand its reach into the global military market.

"Unfortunately, we are in a time of growing global conflict," says Lior. "We have gone from having countries cut back on defense spending to a time where they are now investing heavily in defense. As a result, we are seeing startups like us emerge in this space to solve emerging defense-related problems. Sizeable investments from venture capital firms swiftly follow this. As we all know, where there is opportunity, there is attention, innovation, and investment."