Cohere Technologies has landed a $28 million contract from the US Department of War's FutureG Office to build a prototype radio access network that can detect and track drones using the same infrastructure that carries everyday cellular traffic.

The project represents a major milestone for the concept of Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC) — the idea that wireless networks can serve double duty as radar systems without requiring dedicated military hardware.

At the heart of the system is Cohere's OTFS (Orthogonal Time Frequency Space) waveform, a technology that encodes information directly in the Delay-Doppler domain rather than the time-frequency domain used by standard OFDM waveforms. This gives OTFS a structural advantage in high-Doppler scenarios — exactly the environment created by fast-moving drone swarms.

"ISAC is a mission-first priority for the U.S. Department of War to defend against drone swarms," said Tom Rondeau, Principal Director for FutureG at OUSW(R&E). He added that leadership's push to execute rapidly meant the office needed "a partner with the right technology ready today."

Instead of building dedicated military sensing hardware, Cohere's system — called Pulsone — repurposes existing or future 5G/6G cell sites. The Zak-OTFS waveform allows the network to simultaneously carry data and act as a radar, detecting aerial threats in a way that adversaries cannot distinguish from normal network traffic.

The scope of work includes a multi-waveform physical layer running both legacy 4G/5G OFDM and Pulsone/Zak-OTFS on the same open software stack; a mobile test platform for bi-static and multi-static sensing setups; a "Layered Inference Sensing" system to turn raw radar data into real-time 3D tracks with classification and confidence scoring; and outdoor test environments covering multiple sensing configurations.

Cohere chairman and CEO Ray Dolan described the deal as validation of the company's dual-use strategy, pairing Pulsone with conventional OFDM in a flexible, software-defined architecture aimed at keeping costs down while remaining operationally covert.

The project will require partners from the defense, RAN, and silicon sectors, with an aggressive program timeline. The system will align with the FutureG Office's OCUDU platform and Zero Trust security requirements.

While the immediate use case is counter-drone defense — plus battlefield awareness, border security, and critical infrastructure protection — Cohere and the Pentagon are also eyeing commercial spillover: Advanced Air Mobility traffic management, smart-city applications, and public safety are all named as potential adjacent markets.

For Cohere, the award marks a significant vote of confidence in OTFS as a sensing waveform, not just a communications technology. It gives the company a marquee government reference deployment as it continues pitching Pulsone into both defense and commercial 5G/6G conversations.

The contract signals the Pentagon's growing interest in dual-use wireless technologies that can serve both military and civilian needs — a trend reshaping how defense agencies approach next-generation communications infrastructure.

Sources