Shipboard
Passive watch from a moving deck against a moving background — the configuration taken to sea at ONR Wave Breaker.
Platform
One module. Sensor and brain together.
Balor puts an event-based sensor and an edge processor on one low-power module, so a small, low-cost machine can see a fast threat and decide what to do at the edge — no cloud, no GPS, no GPU.
Proof
Tested at sea, not on a bench
In May 2026 we ran Balor from a U.S. Navy vessel underway at the Office of Naval Research's Wave Breaker exercise in Key West — small-UAS detection and on-the-move tracking from a moving deck against a moving background. The work was later cited in a DIU solution brief.
That puts the platform at TRL 5/6: tested in a real operational environment, in real sea conditions, against real targets.
The clips on this page are unedited field recordings from our own range. The overlay is the system's live output — detection, track identity, and the estimates it forms on-board.
What it is
The module
A neuromorphic sensor and our own processing on one board. Detection and tracking run on the module itself at a few watts — no GPU, no downlink, no GPS dependency.
| Sensing | Event-based (neuromorphic) imaging: every pixel fires independently the instant its own brightness changes |
|---|---|
| Processing | Detection, tracking and classification on the module — edge-AI processing, no external compute |
| Emissions | Fully passive. Nothing radiates for an adversary to detect |
| Navigation | No GPS dependency in the sensing and tracking loop |
| Current build | Commercial Prophesee / Sony IMX636 event sensor with an AMD Kria edge-AI processor |
| Maturity | TRL 5/6 — validated at sea, ONR Wave Breaker, May 2026 |
| Build | Designed, fabricated and tested in-house; all personnel are U.S. citizens |
One hardware set, four jobs
Detect, track, cue and seek are not four products. They are software loads on the same module.
DETECTFind movers in a cluttered, high-glare scene where a frame sensor blooms or blinds.
TRACKHold custody of multiple targets on the move, from a platform that is itself moving.
CUEHand a track with a quality figure to an external fire control system or effector.
SEEKRide the interceptor and close the terminal loop on-board.
Why it holds up
Clutter is the real test
Open sky is the easy scene. The engagement that matters happens against a treeline, a shoreline or a built-up background, where a frame camera has to separate a small dark object from a field of similar-looking texture.
An event sensor sidesteps that problem rather than solving it. A still background generates no events at all, so what survives the sensor is already motion. The tracker starts from a far cleaner input than a frame-differencing pipeline ever gets.
Integration
One board, many mounts
The same unit that went to sea sits on a mast, a fence line, a vehicle or an interceptor. Changing the mount does not change the hardware.
Fixed site
Always-on protection of a base, airfield or critical facility with no emissions for an adversary to find.
Ground vehicle
Mobile detect-and-cue where size, weight and power are hardest to come by.
Interceptor
The same module flying on the effector itself as a terminal seeker.
On specifics. Detection ranges, sensitivity figures, roadmap hardware and integration detail are program-dependent and, in places, export-controlled or covered by agreements with our partners. They are provided against a specific requirement under appropriate agreement rather than published here.