One of the greatest threats to soldiers on the battlefield is that the very communications they need to command and control can often be traced by adversaries back to the source, putting command posts or comms personnel in danger from artillery and drones. By extending communications capabilities beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) for greater standoff distance, troops can stay safe in remote locations, while operating missions of multiple unmanned aerial or ground vehicles.
Breaking Defense spoke with Yoav Amitai, CEO, Elsight, on the challenges of traditional military communications, and how his company’s Halo platform is disrupting the common radio technologies being tested and proven on the battlefield right now.
Breaking Defense: What is the state of BVLOS communications today?
Amitai: In the military, there are different kinds of communications solutions. There are point-to-point (P2P) radios from mesh networks to SDRs (Software Defined Radios). We are seeing a growing usage of satellite communications. However, until recently, the use of 4G/5G networks has been limited. However, none of them alone provide the optimal solution for persistent BVLOS communications in warfare conditions. Communication is pretty much the most important element within the value chain of those platforms, besides the fact that it needs to fly or to drive.
How does your Halo solution meet these challenges?
In contested environments, communications systems face multiple debilitating challenges such as jamming, denial, spectrum congestion, lack of line-of-sight, degraded satellite links, and adversary intervention. It is said that the today’s battlefield is increasingly one of the electromagnetic spectrum and cyber domain, where both sides will employ offensive and defensive capabilities to dominate connectivity.
To meet these challenges, the Elsight Halo connectivity platform delivers a number of key technical and operational capabilities.
The first is multi-link aggregation and resiliency. Rather than relying on a single link (satellite, line‐of‐sight RF or terrestrial), Halo bonds all available communication links (cellular / LTE/5G, SATCOM, RF/mesh/MANET) into a single secured tunnel. This means that if one path is jammed, degraded or denied, the system dynamically redirects traffic over alternative links with minimal interruption. This capability directly addresses the “denied, degraded, intermittent, limited” (DDIL) challenge often flagged in contested communications situations.
Halo also supports spectrum-aware, link-independent routing. Halo uses intelligent networking to continuously assess link health (latency, throughput, interference) and steer packets over the best-available route in real time. It is designed to be spectrum-aware, meaning it can detect contested frequencies and switch to stronger bands. In practice this means that even when an adversary is actively jamming in one band or trying to intercept signals, Halo maintains the mission-critical connectivity by shifting to alternate carriers, frequencies or modalities.
Halo is device-agnostic, ruggedized & mission-ready. Designed for beyond visual line-of-sight in military applications, Halo is device-agnostic and integrates with most unmanned aerial and ground devices. It is built to operate at temperature extremes, with a low SWaP in mobile settings, and very portable at 93 grams for expeditionary deployments.
How does Halo maintain resilient communications in the face of jamming and spoofing?
In today’s contested electromagnetic environment, jamming and spoofing are no longer hypothetical, they’re everyday threats. Elsight’s Halo platform is built from the ground up to ensure communications continuity when the spectrum becomes a battlefield.
At its core, Halo leverages multi-link aggregation simultaneously bonding cellular (4G/5G), SATCOM, RF, and other data channels into one encrypted communications pipe. This architecture means that even if an adversary successfully jams one or more links, Halo’s intelligent routing engine automatically detects the degradation and reroutes traffic in real time through the remaining viable paths. Operators never lose the connection, even when under electronic attack.
Halo also employs adaptive, spectrum-aware algorithms that constantly monitor signal integrity and environmental interference. When jamming is detected, the system can dynamically shift frequency bands or data bearers, minimizing vulnerability to targeted interference.
Against spoofing, Halo’s architecture uses end-to-end AES-256 encryption, mutual authentication, and secure tunneling, ensuring that only verified data streams are accepted. Every packet’s path is validated, eliminating the risk of false signal injection or data corruption.
Finally, Halo’s distributed and transport-agnostic design means there are no single points of failure. By blending multiple carriers and transmission modalities into a unified, encrypted data flow, the system maintains mission-critical connectivity whether the adversary is trying to jam, intercept, or impersonate signals.
What lessons are being learned from combat around the world right now?
Modern conflicts are proving that communications resilience is as decisive as firepower. From Eastern Europe to the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific, the lesson is clear: connectivity wins battles. Commanders are discovering that when networks fail whether due to jamming, infrastructure collapse, or cyber interference, situational awareness, coordination, and precision all degrade within moments.
The first key lesson is the critical importance of resilient, redundant, and adaptive communications. Forces can no longer rely on a single channel, frequency, or satellite link. The fight for the electromagnetic spectrum is constant, and the side that maintains data flow despite jamming or denial maintains operational tempo and initiative.
Second, there’s a growing recognition that mobility and decentralization demand agile networking. Units are dispersed, platforms are unmanned, and battlefields are data-rich but infrastructure-poor. Systems must automatically connect, adapt, and recover without waiting for human intervention.
Third, global combat experience underscores the need for secure, encrypted pathways that protect against spoofing and signal exploitation. Information integrity is now a survival issue.
These lessons directly inform the design philosophy behind Elsight’s Halo solution: a multi-link, multi-path communications platform that ensures connectivity endures even when the electromagnetic spectrum is contested. Halo embodies the battlefield reality that communication must not just be fast, it must be unbreakable.
How does Halo work in practice to give commanders real-time visibility from multiple sources such as drones and sensors?
We become the main proxy or the main hub of all the data that is going back and forth from the platform. That’s including telemetry, control, sensors and everything. We’re not the sensor or not the controller, but everything is going through us. It’s providing the operator with the ability to control multiple devices at the same time and remain in a remote safe location, whether that’s ground or aerial vehicles, as I mentioned.
From a CONOPS perspective, they are all getting the same benefit of being able to be connected to the control center or headquarters that control multiple platforms with an additional software layer for management.
What is the Halo learning curve for troops in the field?
The Halo platform is engineered for ease of deployment and minimal training overhead, which has been a decisive factor in its selection by the U.S. Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) under Project G.I.. During Phase 2 evaluations, Halo’s multilink bonded connectivity demonstrated “mission-ready” performance, integrating seamlessly with existing uncrewed systems and communications architectures.
Because Halo is device-agnostic and operates at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 9, troops in the field can integrate it with current Blue UAS platforms and ground control systems without needing specialized technical expertise. The interface is designed for plug-and-play operation, automatically bonding available cellular, satellite, and RF channels into a single secure communications tunnel requiring no manual configuration under stress or in combat conditions.
The DIU’s decision to advance Halo to Phase 3 underscores that operators were able to achieve full functionality with minimal instruction and no additional infrastructure, validating the system’s low learning curve and operational intuitiveness. In other words, Halo “just works” allowing warfighters to focus on mission execution rather than network troubleshooting.