Cohere Technologies
Analysis: Cohere’s $28M U.S. DoD FutureG ISAC contract; OTFS vs OFDM; 6G-NR/IMT 2030 RIT standards outlook
Executive Summary:
Cohere Technologies has won a $28 million U.S. government contract funded by the FutureG Office within the U.S. Department of War (previously called the Defense Department or DoD) to develop a multi-waveform RAN prototype for integrated sensing and communications (ISAC), with Cohere’s Zak-OTFS as a core waveform alongside conventional OFDM [1]. The DoD award expands on a National Science Foundation VINES Phase 2 project. It will fund the development of a sovereign, mission-first ISAC capability that leverages existing and future commercial 5G/6G infrastructure to provide persistent aerial and ground surveillance while remaining indistinguishable from ordinary cellular traffic.
Mission: The contract is intended to turn commercial cellular infrastructure into a sensing layer for detection, tracking, and response applications, especially drone defense. Cohere says the prototype will support a multi-waveform software stack, a mobile test platform, and a layered inference sensing system that converts delay-Doppler data into real-time 3D tracks with classification and confidence scoring.
Cohere is positioning OTFS [2.] via its Pulsone/Zak-OTFS technology, as the waveform that better fits high-Doppler sensing and communications than plain OFDM. The company argues that OTFS carries information in the delay-Doppler domain, which is useful when the same signal must communicate and sense moving targets such as drones. If successful, this DoD funded ISAC demo could give OTFS a stronger credibility boost with standards bodies, equipment vendors, and defense customers, even if it does not immediately make OTFS a mainstream 3GPP waveform.
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Definitions and Comparison: OFDM vs. OTFS:
Note 1. OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) is the 1D time-frequency workhorse that dominates WiFi, 4G and 5G because it is simpler, mature, and standardized by IEEE 802.11, ITU-R, and ETSI. OFDM maps data onto orthogonal subcarriers in the frequency domain, with symbols arranged over time and frequency; it is the basis of 4G LTE and is also used in 5G NR. OTFS maps data in the delay-Doppler domain and then spreads each symbol across the time-frequency plane, so the receiver sees a more invariant coupling to the channel under high Doppler and multipath.
Note 2. OTFS (orthogonal time frequency space) modulation is best thought of as a 2D, delay-Doppler-native waveform that Cohere has championed for highly mobile and doubly selective channels. It’s main advantage over OFDM is that it can make the channel look more stable to each symbol in fast-varying, high-Doppler environments, whereas OFDM excels when channels are relatively well-behaved and implementation efficiency matters most.
| Aspect | OTFS | OFDM |
|---|---|---|
| Best channel condition | High mobility, high Doppler, strong time variation | Quasi-stationary or modestly varying channels |
| Channel view | Delay-Doppler domain, more invariant symbol coupling | Time-frequency domain, channel varies per subcarrier/time slot |
| Equalization burden | Potentially easier in challenging channels, especially with mobility | Well understood and efficient in mainstream deployments |
| Standardization | Emerging, not yet the default cellular waveform comsoc+1 | Fully embedded in 4G/5G ecosystems |
| Maturity | Less mature, more research/prototype-driven | Very mature, widely deployed |
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Quotes and Capabilities:
“ISAC is a mission-first priority for the U.S. Department of War to defend against drone swarms. Due to guidance from leadership to execute rapidly, we required a partner with the right technology ready today,” said Tom Rondeau, Principal Director for FutureG, OUSW(R&E). “As a proven innovator with a demonstrated ability to build multi-waveform platforms, Cohere Technologies offered a clear path that we could move on immediately. Their OTFS modulation carries information directly in the sensing domain, delivering massive communications and sensing performance advantages in high-Doppler environments. This solution rapidly delivers critical ISAC capabilities while building on our ‘innovate-first’ posture, demonstrating the tremendous opportunity for innovation brought by the FutureG Open Centralized Unit Distributed Unit (OCUDU) platform.”
The multi-waveform system prototype is designed to provide detection, classification, tracking, and defeat-cueing of drone threats while operating in commercial spectrum bands, making it difficult for adversaries to distinguish sensing activity from normal cellular communications. In addition to core defense applications-including battlefield awareness, border security, and critical infrastructure protection-the program will identify parallel commercial use cases such as Advanced Air Mobility, smart city traffic management, and public safety. Work under the contract will be executed in close collaboration with government technical authorities and program partners.
“This ISAC contract from DoW represents a major milestone for Cohere and for the future of dual-use wireless technology,” said Ray Dolan, Chairman and CEO of Cohere Technologies. “By combining our Pulsone Technology with conventional Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) in a flexible, software-defined architecture, we can deliver high-performance sensing that is affordable, scalable, and operationally invisible-exactly what is needed to counter the growing threat of sophisticated drone and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS).”
Key Capabilities to Be Developed Under the Program:
- A Multi-Waveform physical layer running on an open, extensible software stack that supports both traditional 4G and 5G OFDM and Pulsone Technology using the Zak-OTFS waveform.
- A Mobile Test Platform enabling bi-static and multi-static sensing configurations.
- A Layered Inference Sensing system that converts raw Delay-Doppler data into real-time 3D tracks with classification and confidence scoring.
- Realistic outdoor test environments supporting mono-static, bi-static, and multi-static sensing.
- Compliance with the FutureG OCUDU platform and Zero Trust security requirements.
“This ISAC project award validates Cohere’s long-term vision of building sovereign, future-proof wireless infrastructure that serves both national security and commercial markets,” Dolan added. “We are proud to work alongside the FutureG Office and partners to deliver technology that strengthens our nation’s ability to sense and respond in contested environments.”
Cohere and the FutureG Office are considering commercial applications like Advanced Air Mobility traffic management, smart-city applications, and public safety are all named as potential adjacent markets, continuing the dual-use framing the Pentagon has increasingly favored for next-gen wireless R&D.
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Caveats and 6G NR/IMT 2030 RIT Standards Outlook:
The public information so far is largely company-announced, so the contract details, schedule, and technical requirements should be treated as initial disclosures rather than a full program specification. Also, the award appears to fund a prototype and operational demonstration, not a guaranteed path to standards adoption or mass deployment. While it is certainly possible for OTFS to be accepted as an IMT 2030 RIT (Radio Interface Technology), 3GPPs submission (via ATIS) to ITU-R WP5D will almost surely be OFDM based version of 6G NR.
ITU-R WP 5D has published the IMT-2030 roadmap and invited RIT-candidate submissions in the 02/2027 to 02/2029 window, so the process is still open to proposals. WP 5D’s role is to define the overall radio system aspects for IMT, but it does not itself guarantee adoption of any one waveform; candidates must survive technical performance requirements, evaluation criteria, and national/industry consensus. That means OTFS can still be proposed, but it would need to show clear benefits under the evaluation framework and broad support from proponents.
To get adopted, OTFS would need to prove more than attractive simulation results. It would need implementable receiver complexity, backward-compatible deployment pathways, acceptable PAPR and synchronization behavior, and a compelling story for mass-market devices, not just high-mobility or ISAC use cases. The literature and industry commentary generally position OTFS as strongest where Doppler and sensing matter most, which helps its case but may also narrow its scope.
The most realistic 6G/IMT 2030 standards scenario is:
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3GPP keeps OFDM-family waveforms as the baseline for 6G NR.
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OTFS remains active in research, patents, and trial implementations.
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OTFS is considered for targeted IMT-2030 RIT use cases such as high mobility, NTN, or integrated sensing and communications, rather than universal deployment.
Conclusions:
The U.S. government is backing Cohere’s OTFS-centered ISAC concept with real funding, and the strategic aim is to fuse communications and sensing in a way that is harder for drones or other threats to detect. For OTFS, that is a meaningful validation event, but still a prototype-stage win rather than proof of broad cellular standardization.
Cohere’s OTFS is not “better OFDM”; it is a different design point optimized for a harder channel model. OFDM remains the incumbent because it is standardized and efficient, but OTFS has a credible technical case where Doppler and channel variation are the real bottlenecks.
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About Cohere Technologies:
Cohere is the innovator of Universal Spectrum Multiplier (USM) software for 4G, 5G, and Multi-G. USM significantly improves mobile networks in any FDD and TDD spectrum band – and Pulsone™ Technology which is based on the Zak-OTFS waveform for ISAC and NTN. Pulsone is a trademark of Cohere Technologies. Cohere is headquartered in San Jose, Calif. (USA). www.cohere-tech.com
About the FutureG Office:
The FutureG Office within the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering is responsible for the strategic assessment and research and development of FutureG technologies to confer long-term economic, military and security advantages to the United States of America and its allies. By strengthening and developing relationships with private industry, academia, interagency and international allies and partners, the FutureG Office promotes the use of common, commercial standards for DoW operations, encourages adoption of open and interoperable technologies, and advances critical next-generation wireless network capabilities.
About the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation:
The OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation, hosted by the Linux Foundation, is a global public-private initiative dedicated to building a commercial and research ecosystem around a production-ready, open source CU/DU stack. By fostering collaboration across the entire RAN lifecycle, from R&D to end-to-end integration, the OCUDU Ecosystem Foundation provides the reference architectures, conformance tooling, and “super blueprints” required to scale Open RAN from pilot projects to global production.
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References:
https://www.lightreading.com/6g/us-defense-dept-backs-6g-rival-to-tech-used-by-ericsson-and-nokia
Cohere Technologies bags $28M DoW deal to turn cell sites into drone-spotting sensors
https://rt.cto.mil/ddre-rt/science-and-technology-futures/futureg-home/
Multi-G Initiative to drive Open RAN Software Interfaces and increase innovation
Multi-G Initiative to drive Open RAN Software Interfaces and increase innovation
Cohere Technologies, Intel, Juniper Networks, Mavenir and VMware intend to collaborate to develop the industry’s first framework for a multi-generational (Multi-G), software-based Open RAN architecture. The Multi-G initiative would define frameworks, interfaces, interoperability testing, and evaluation criteria that would provide the interfaces to support full coexistence of 4G, 5G, and future waveforms.
Intel’s FlexRAN platform is used by most current virtualized RAN (vRAN) deployments; Mavenir has a strong presence in providing open RAN equipment and software; and Juniper Networks and VMware are both contributing their work with the RAN intelligent controller (RIC). Cohere’s contribution is through its Universal Spectrum Multiplier software that can be integrated by RAN vendors or as an “app” into a telco cloud platform.
Intel’s involvement in this initiative is significant from an industry perspective due to the breadth of FlexRAN adoption. It also puts the chip giant a step ahead of competitors like Qualcomm, Arm and AMD that are aggressively targeting the Open RAN silicon market.
The new Multi-G framework would disaggregate RAN intelligence and scheduling functions, enabling future code releases of Intel’s FlexRAN reference architecture to support higher capacity, software-defined deployments for 4G, 5G and next generation wireless waveforms and standards.
This effort would help drive higher performance and connectivity across satellite, private and ad-hoc networks, and autonomous vehicles, increasing new service and revenue opportunities for telecommunications and mobile operators.
“This is going to make the network programmable all the way from layer one to the highest layers of the architecture,” said Cohere Technologies’ CEO Ray Dolan. “It’s not that open RAN is incomplete or not vibrant or not working, it is.” Right now, it has opened most of the parts that are what I’ll say are less controversial than the E2 interface. It’s opened the radio interfaces and the antenna interfaces, and so it’s established. But it hasn’t established the proper E2 interfaces completely. And that’s widely accepted as a fact. And in order for, I believe, for open RAN to really achieve its full vision, it needs to open that E2 interface because that’s where the innovation will come. Because that’s where all of the complexity in the marketplace is.”
The E2 work basically taps into the near real-time xApps running in a RIC to monitor and optimize an operator’s RAN deployment – typically either a vRAN or open RAN – and across different spectrum bands. This in turn allows an operator to support more stringent service-level agreements (SLAs) and private network deployments that can generate more revenues.
Ahead of the group’s first meeting in May 2023, telecommunications leaders worldwide are already sharing support for the collaborative initiative:
Vodafone Group
“This commitment from Intel, Mavenir, Juniper Networks, and Cohere, with a software programmable L1 stack, is fully aligned with the vision of Open RAN and will bring us one step closer to the scale deployment of software-defined RAN,” said Yago Tenorio, Vodafone Fellow and Director of Network Architecture, and Chairman of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP). “This has huge potential for significant performance and capacity benefits for all existing cellular networks. We strongly endorse this initiative, and we look forward to seeing the critical interfaces published into the relevant O-RAN Alliance and TIP Working Groups.”
Telstra
“Cohere’s Universal Spectrum Multiplier technology has the potential to unlock new architectural capabilities and opportunities for the RAN beyond today’s architecture,” said Iskra Nikolova, Network and Infrastructure Engineering Executive at Telstra. “We’re pleased to support this initiative and look forward to working with Cohere and the group to define the framework and accompanying critical interfaces.”
Bell
“A genuine Multi-G framework will enhance the benefits of Cohere’s Universal Spectrum Multiplier, strengthen Open RAN vendor flexibility down to the silicon layer, and allow old and new waveforms to coexist— beyond 5G,” said Mark McDonald, Bell’s Vice President, Wireless Access. “Bell looks forward to working with Cohere and partners later this year to further test this architecture.”
Hear from the Collaborators:
Intel Corporation
“This Multi-G framework, enabled by Intel FlexRAN – which is fully software programmable down to L1 – will enable faster O-RAN adoption and unlock new innovations,” said Sachin Katti, senior vice president and general manager of the Network and Edge Group at Intel Corporation.
Mavenir
“As the leading Open RAN partner, we’re excited to be part of the Multi-G initiative which promises to bring 4G and 5G spectral efficiencies gains not possible with incumbent solutions,” said Bejoy Pankajakshan, EVP-Chief Technology and Strategy Officer at Mavenir. “Unlike traditional DSS (Dynamic Spectrum Sharing) techniques which reduces 4G and 5G performance, with our Multi-G collaboration with Cohere and Intel, Mavenir can provide a true spectrum co-existence solution, which deploys 5G on the same spectrum assets as 4G dramatically improving the ROI per Hz on the existing 4G spectrum.”
Juniper Networks
“As more 5G deployments are underway, there is still a large installed base of 4G networks that can benefit from the intelligence, control and automation enabled by an Open RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) architecture,” said Raj Yavatkar, CTO of Juniper Networks. “Juniper Networks has already demonstrated innovative 4G and 5G use cases with our Juniper Non-RealTime RIC and Near-RealTime RIC that can provide more flexibility to network operators. We are excited to add our expertise and join the Multi-G framework initiative, which will not only help to accelerate Open RAN adoptions but will also spur further innovation across multiple generations of mobile networks to enhance the network operator experience.”
VMware
“VMware is already paving the way for more programmable and intelligent Open RAN networks with our VMware RIC and our Service Management Orchestration Framework (SMO) for end-to-end RAN automation, assurance and optimization,” said Sanjay Uppal, GM & SVP, Service Provider Business Unit, VMware. “We are pleased to join other industry leaders to pioneer in the development of the industry’s first framework for a Multi-G, software-programmable architecture that will further encourage innovation and fast-track the adoption of Open RAN globally.”
Open RAN Policy Coalition
“Defining new interfaces that supercharge developing and future networks is critical for the success of open networks,” said Diane Rinaldo, Executive Director of the Open RAN Policy Coalition. “This will foster innovation and add flexibility, which will improve our competitiveness.”
Cohere Technologies
“We are pleased to work with world-class partners and operators to accelerate the deployment of Multi-G, open networks with significant performance improvements,” said Ray Dolan, CEO of Cohere Technologies. “Cohere is committed to a software-based, open architecture that can drive faster innovation and deliver critical revenue growth and profitability for the industry.”
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About Cohere Technologies:
Cohere is the innovator of Universal Spectrum Multiplier (USM) software for 4G, 5G, and Multi-G O-RAN. USM improves mobile networks up to 2x by MU-MIMO, enabling existing devices in any FDD and TDD spectrum band. Cohere is the creator of the Orthogonal Time Frequency Space (OTFS) wireless system, and is headquartered in San Jose, Calif. (USA). Website: www.cohere-tech.com Twitter: @Cohere_MultiG
References:
https://www.cohere-tech.com/press-releases/multi-g-initiative
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