SPARC AI has announced the launch of the Overwatch Positioning Network, a service designed to provide drones with positioning data when GPS is jammed, spoofed or unavailable.
According to the company, a connected aircraft sends sensor and telemetry data to Overwatch and receives its position back in roughly a third of a second. SPARC AI said the service does not require installing hardware or software on the aircraft, with processing handled in data centres.
The company positioned Overwatch as an alternative to conventional GPS-denied navigation approaches that typically require onboard hardware, compute and software installed on each aircraft. It said Overwatch moves the compute requirement off the airframe and into secure facilities, returning positioning information via an API.
SPARC AI said Overwatch is designed to replicate across multiple geographic data-centre regions and scale compute automatically as the number of connected aircraft grows. The company said it intends to add network capacity as demand increases, rather than deploying payloads on individual drones.
The company said Ukraine is expected to play a key role in validating the network “at operational volume”, citing large-scale drone production in an actively contested environment. SPARC AI said it has existing engagements with Ukrainian drone manufacturers and other stakeholders who have been invited to access Overwatch as its primary delivery model.
SPARC AI also said staff will attend the MSPO defence industry exhibition in Poland from 8 September and that it has scheduled meetings with European drone original equipment manufacturers, with further announcements expected regarding expansion of the Overwatch network.
