Aloft Sensing, Inc.

Aloft Sensing, Inc. is a for-profit small business located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, specializing in advanced radar sensing and navigation technologies for autonomous platforms. The company focuses on developing sophisticated synthetic aperture radar (SAR), moving target indication (MTI), and positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) technologies for various government and defense applications. Through its federal contract and grant awards, Aloft Sensing provides cutting-edge research and development services primarily in the domains of radar systems, autonomous platform technologies, and high-resolution imaging capabilities.

The company has been awarded multiple federal contracts across various agencies, with a significant concentration of work from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). These contracts involve complex radar-related projects such as modifying embedded onboard SAR/MTI processing implementations, integrating X-band synthetic aperture radar payloads for high-altitude balloon demonstrations, validating SAR performance during operational flights, and developing radar systems capable of moving target indication detection. Most of these contracts are firm fixed-price delivery orders with ceiling values ranging from approximately $100,000 to $1 million. The contracts are predominantly not set aside for specific business types, though some were designated as total small business set-asides, particularly for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I and Phase II awards.

Aloft Sensing has received federal grants primarily from the Shared Services Center, focusing on advanced research initiatives in radar sensing and navigation. These grants include a $1,361,966 project for developing an embedded positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) module for distributed radar sensing and a substantial $5,082,380 research grant for developing a High Altitude Long Endurance Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (HALE InSAR) system. These project grants aim to enable continuous and precise measurement of Earth's changing surface and enhance robotic mobility and multi-vehicle coordination through advanced radar vision systems.

The company holds two significant Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDV) contracts: a $5 million single-award IDV with the Air Force Research Laboratory for acquiring and supporting Synthetic Aperture Radar systems on high-altitude platforms, and a $1.6 million Other Transaction Agreement with the Department of the Army for providing various sensing capabilities including hyperspectral, LiDAR, and multispectral imagery collection systems. These IDVs allow Aloft Sensing to provide flexible, task-order-based services across multiple sensing and radar-related domains, supporting government agencies' evolving technological needs in autonomous and reconnaissance platforms.

Aloft Sensing is taking a fresh look at radar sensing from the stratosphere and other domains, leveraging innovative processing techniques to transform the way Earth observation and tactical ISR data is collected.

Aloft provides high-quality synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery and sensitive change indication measurements from compact software defined radar payloads that are well-suited to autonomous uncrewed vehicles.

A key innovation behind Aloft's approach is a self-contained positioning and navigation technique that achieves micron-level localization and picosecond timing to maintain coherence across a baseline or series of baselines.

Enhanced sensing products include precise moving target geolocation, millimetric surface deformation, centimeter-level topography, and 3D volumetric reconstructions. Aloft's technique even extends to underwater synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) systems to enable undersea navigation while simultaneously mapping the sea floor.