The United States’ Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), in close collaboration with US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), US Army, US Navy, US Marine Corps, and US Indo-Pacific Command representatives, has announced the selection of ten finalists to advance in the Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft System (C-sUAS) Low-Cost Sensing (LCS) challenge. These selected companies, chosen from 118 submissions, will move forward to demonstrate their sensor technologies during USNORTHCOM’s Falcon Peak exercise in September.
The ten finalists are:
- BLUEiQ
- CHAOS 1
- Fortem Technologies
- Guardian RF
- Hidden Level
- MatrixSpace
- REVOBEAM
- Squarehead Technology
- Teledyne FLIR Defense
- Thalrix
DIU said that the solutions selected represent a diverse range of sensor modalities, including radio frequency passive detection, active radar, acoustic, optical cameras, infrared cameras and several mixed modality technologies. “The selected approaches have the potential to deliver significant value compared to current Department of Defense systems for key coverage areas, at a potential cost savings of 50-80 percent in total cost of ownership.” DIU said in a July 21 statement.
Launched in May 2025, the LCS challenge addresses the critical need to complement Defense Department sensor systems with affordable, distributed sensing technologies that can scale.
Selected finalists now advance to live demonstration and testing at USNORTHCOM’s Falcon Peak 25.2 exercise. Falcon Peak will provide a real-world test of these low-cost sensing solutions and the prize purse will be distributed based on performance at the event.
“Beyond the prize money, top performers may also be considered for follow-on opportunities, including Other Transaction (OT) agreements, a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), and direct transition into operational use, accelerating the deployment of these capabilities and making the best tech available to the warfighter with the speed and scale required,” DIU said.
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Image: DIU
