Arkeus is an Australian company which specialises in rapid design, innovation, development and fabrication of autonomous optical capabilities. Arkeus leverages world leading expertise in optics and autonomy to enable information to be rapidly extracted, exploited and interpreted to improve security and to save lives.

Arkeus is pleased to announce it has secured significant multi-million-dollar contracts with the United States military to provide its flagship Hyperspectral Optical Radar (HSOR). These agreements mark a major acceleration in the company’s growth and builds on 18 months of successful evaluation and demonstration deployments.

HSOR is a world-first ISR capability designed for autonomous-enabled operations. Unlike traditional unmanned systems that rely on RF links and human operators, which can lead to intercepted, broken or degraded signals, HSOR enables real-time, on-sensor analysis without emitting signals or transmitting data to ground control stations. The AI onboard the system gains a contextual understanding of its environment and autonomously isolates mission-relevant detections.

For contested environments where the risk of sending expensive equipment is high, HSOR offers an attractive alternative. HSOR is deployable on smaller, lower-cost Group 3 UAS platforms, as well as larger systems like the General Atomics Reaper, offering both tactical advantage and cost efficiency. Arkeus’ technology enables military planners to extract greater capability from lower-cost assets, aligning with emerging operational strategies observed in current global conflicts.

The US contract comes after successive contracts with the Australian Defence Force, highlighting Arkeus’ ongoing commitment to strengthening the AUKUS partnership through the delivery of interoperable equipment. This contract underscores Arkeus’ position as a trusted partner of Australia and its allied nations.

Simon Olsen, CEO and co-founder of Arkeus, said, “Every other payload for an uncrewed system requires constant human in the loop. The data these systems capture is designed to be sent back to a human operator to be exploited. All that data can be detected and intercepted by a nefarious actor. Even if that wasn’t the case, the speed from when the data is collected, to when decisions can be made is slow. The disruptive effect of our technology is enormous. The AI operating aboard these systems is able to determine, based on the mission pre-sets, what’s critical to the mission and what’s not and make targeted recommendations back to the operator based on the environment about what needs to be disseminated and what doesn’t. The speed to effect is rapidly accelerated, while reducing the probability of detection and disruption.”

Arkeus | Optics & Autonomy through Artificial Intelligence

For media enquiries: Erin Boutros (erin.boutros@arkeus.com)