GPS-denied navigation

Ascend Engineering provides contract engineering teams for drone companies that need specialized UAV expertise, taking on software, autonomy, flight controls, payload, sensor, and integration projects. Founded in 2019 by Andrew Wilkins and Zachary Lowell, the company builds production autonomy hardware and is an upstream contributor to PX4 and QGroundControl. Based in Chicago, IL.

assembly and flight testingAutopilot designCAD designcompanion computer integrationcustom drone buildsflight control systemsobstacle avoidancePCB design and programmingPX4 developmentROS1 & ROS2 integrationsensor fusionUAV software engineeringUAV tuning/calibration

Astral builds an open autonomy stack for uncrewed systems, offering autonomous drones and rovers with on-device AI that operate in GPS- and communications-denied environments. The company publishes an open SDK, simulator, datasets, and benchmarks, and its modular stack reached 1.04 m positional error across 10,200 closed-loop flight trials.

3D depth sensing obstacle avoidancecomm-denied autonomous operationfleet mission controlon-device AI reasoningopen source software stacksimulationvisual-inertial navigation

Bulwark Dynamics is a DefenseTech company building autonomous maritime logistics capabilities for contested environments. It is developing the CARAVEL, an autonomous beach-landing logistics vessel with ultra-shallow draft, GPS-denied navigation, and autonomous offload. The company describes itself as a vertically integrated autonomous maritime logistics company with production based in the U.S. and Japan, founded in 2025.

autonomous navigationautonomous offloadbeach landing without a pierexpeditionary manufacturinghull productionpayload integrationshipbuilding

Road\\Rail SynchronizedGlīd builds dual-mode road-to-rail systems that move freight across road, rail, yard, port, and defense environments with fewer handoffs, less dwell, and no new fixed infrastructure. We are GlīdA dual-use logistics infrastructure company building the operating layer between road, rail, yard, port, and contested logistics.PartnersInvestors WHAT WE DOGlīderM and Rāden move freight across road and standard-gauge rail, reducing the machines, people, and transfer points required to complete the first-mile move.RAILSGlīders eliminate bottlenecks at congested ports and yards.Eliminate bottlenecks.TRACTIONGlīders can navigate a wide selection of diverse terrain.Navigate diverse terrain.60° ROTATIONGlīders can change orientation to navigate obstacles.Change orientation to avoid obstacles.Through Mobility-as-a-Service, Glīd gives operators access to road-to-rail capability.

autonomy with human-in-the-loop operationsdual-mode road-to-rail systemsfleet coordinationhybrid-electric capabilityrouting and dispatchzero-crew operations

InZero Technologies is a privately owned research and development company in Sterling, Virginia, working in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. It builds hardware-enforced cybersecurity that isolates smartphones and email in hardware-enforced domains, and OpticaNavi, a GPS-denied navigation technology for drones that reads terrain and matches it to a prepared map. The company holds 11 awarded U.S. patents with more than 150 claims and licenses its technologies.

Artificial Intelligencecybersecurity R&Dhardware-isolated computingtechnology licensing