Technology


NATO £30m funding backs UK thermal intelligence firm, SatVu, to build a multi-satellite constellation


UK-based thermal intelligence company, SatVu, has just received a £30m funding from the NATO Innovation Fund to move on to the execution stage of a thermal technology based multi-satellite constellation. Tis funding brings SatVu’s total to £60m, which is also backed by British Business Bank, Space Frontiers Fund II and Presto Tech Horizons. SatVu’s solutions provide round-the-clock


“activity intelligence” using space-based thermal imaging, delivering information on mobilisation, operational activity and infrastructure status that other commercial sensors can’t detect. “SatVu was founded to give governments


access to intelligence they can’t access elsewhere. High-resolution thermal imagery from space reveals activity, day and night, that is otherwise invisible, including heat signatures associated with operations inside and around buildings and critical infrastructure. Tis allows


Thermal image of the Bander Abbas Port Strait of Homuz


governments to assess activity, readiness and operational change – a critical new data layer that matters for defence, security and sovereign decision making,” said Anthony Baker, SatVu Co-Founder and CEO. SatVu has two satellites (HotSat-2 and


HotSat-3) planned for orbit in 2026, with additional three (HotSat-4, HotSat-5 and


HotSat-6) to follow. Whilst a single satellite can observe any point on Earth, a constellation increases re-visit frequency, enabling persistent monitoring of activity and operational readiness. SatVu’s development has been supported by


UK government programmes, too, including the UK Defence Innovation.


Photonics-based approach to communication enables deployable, high-performance infrastructure


Taara has just created Taara Photonics, the world’s first wireless communication platform based on optical phased arrays. Taara Photonics joins Taara Beam, the


first Taara product based on a photonic core, to build commercial communications and connectivity infrastructure based on photonics. By moving the core functionality of high-speed wireless optical communication into an IC that controls light electronically, Taara will enable networks to be deployed within hours, without the constraints associated with trenching fibre or securing scarce spectrum. Te proprietary optical phased arrays


were developed at Taara and X labs over several years. Taara Beam is the first product built on the photonic platform, delivering signal speeds of up to 25Gbps, at low latency and over distances to 10km. Designed for operators, enterprises and next- generation data infrastructure, Taara Beam fits in a tiny package, yet brings fibre-like speeds to environments where traditional


04 March 2026 www.electronicsworld.co.uk


infrastructure is too slow, costly or impractical to build. Tis marks a shiſt from fixed, physical networks to infrastructure that can evolve in sync with demand. “Every generation of connectivity has


been defined by a physical constraint, such as copper’s speed, fibre’s time to deploy and the scarcity of radio spectrum,” said Mahesh Krishnaswamy, Founder and CEO of Taara. “With light transmitted through the air, those constraints begin to disappear. Taara Beam is the first commercial product built on our photonics platform, and it’s just the beginning. We’re not just improving networks, we’re removing the limits that have defined them.” Traditional free-space optical systems steer


beams of light using mirrors, sensors and mechanical hardware – an approach that is physically constrained at scale. Taara Beam represents a new architecture, moving from mechanical control to increasingly solid state control of light. At its core is an integrated


photonic module containing over a thousand miniature light emitters arranged in an optical phased array, a solid state steering device. Tis phased array allows Taara Beam to track, shape and steer light with great precision, improving signal reliability and latency. “Silicon photonics allows us to integrate


the core functionalities of wireless optical communication into a single module,” said Devin Brinkley, SVP of Engineering at Taara. “We’ve compressed most of the functionality of our previous systems into a photonic module the size of a finger. As the technology matures, it can scale across performance, cost and size, similar to the exponential pace at which semiconductor platforms evolve.” Being compact in size, Taara Beam can


be mounted on rooſtops, poles or various structures quickly, to form high bandwidth mesh networks. By operating in the unlicensed optical spectrum, it avoids signal congestion and recurring spectrum costs whilst delivering the performance modern networks require.


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