In an era of connectivity, companies cannot afford to lose out on any information—especially in sensitive areas like defence. That’s where drone connectivity solutions company Elsight’s (ASX: ELS) Halo comes in. 

During a strategic collaboration exercise, the Company found that its Halo connectivity platform was rapidly integrated with Lockheed Martin’s Indago 4 UAS (drone) to complete BVLOS (beyond visual line-of-sight) flights with enhanced capabilities and expanded operational reach. 

Elsight is a carrier-agnostic, AI-powered connectivity solutions company. Following this successful integration, Lockheed Martin can now immediately offer this configuration, Indago 4 with Halo, as a solution to its customers. 

Co-founder and CTO of Elsight, Roee Kashi, commented, “We designed the Halo to provide real-time situational awareness in difficult defence and public safety scenarios. Ultimately, field commanders must make strategic decisions at any moment and have the widest ‘lens’ possible with all the critical information. Now, with our integration, the Indago 4 becomes the ‘eyes’ of any commander and the control centre.” 

Indago 4 is a tactical quadcopter (a mini helicopter with four rotors) uncrewed aerial system purpose-built for vital missions. It deploys with expanded capabilities designed for military and security forces applications. Its producer, Lockheed Martin, is a global defence technology company driving innovation and advancing scientific discovery. 

Elsight provides hybrid (on-the-move or fixed) video and data capturing, recording and transmission for real-time security and surveillance purposes/applications. Its products serve vertical markets leveraging UAV and UAS technologies, including the military, HLS, public safety, delivery, medical, oil and gas, utilities, inspections, surveillance and others. 

Halo is a communication system. It ensures uninterrupted connectivity even in the most challenging environments by seamlessly aggregating diverse IP links—public cellular, private cellular, satellite, and SDR radio. 

In situations such as natural disasters (e.g., wildfires, flooding, earthquakes) or law enforcement scenarios (e.g., hostages, search and rescue, crowd or traffic control), the transmission of real-time video and data providing exact situational awareness can be critical. The transmission of this video via drones or other types of systems like cameras is what Halo does.

In Q1 CY24, Elsight’s sales revenue was $942.8k higher than in Q1 CY23, primarily due to the continuing global penetration of government, private defence and HLS entities. The proportion of this sector about overall sales rose by 57% in Q1 CY24 versus Q4 CY23.

The Company’s management sees this interest from the Defence and HLS sector expanding in CY24, parallel to its current efforts in the commercial sectors. As a result, the Company has implemented strategies to leverage these new use cases to penetrate similar defence and HLS organisations globally. 

Though the overall quarterly revenue is slightly lower, down $8k over the previous quarter, the revenue portion from the Defense and HLS sector has risen, quarter-after-quarter, at 57% higher from Q4 CY23. 

The continued rise in the number of returning customers came mainly from the defence and HLS sectors, i.e. 47 in total recurring customers, including Censys Technologies (US), Farada (Poland), Airobocs (US), Robocan (Israel), and Colugo (Israel).

With this collaboration, Indigo 4 will have greater capabilities, whether disaster response, surveillance, or remote inspections, transmitting video and data to the command-and-control centre.