Department of National Defence to test Zighra’s IntentHunter
Press Release + Noah Note
OTTAWA, Ontario, June 02, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Zighra Inc. announced today that it has been awarded a Department of National Defence (DND) contract, through the Innovative Solutions Canada (ISC) program, to support the testing of IntentHunter, an AI-powered intent inference and situational awareness software platform designed to help counter rapidly evolving drone threats, referred to as uncrewed aerial systems (UAS).
"Drone warfare has changed the problem. It's no longer about detection alone; it's about understanding intent in dynamic conditions." - Deepak Dutt, CEO, Zighra
UAS threats are increasingly low-cost, adaptive, and difficult to interpret using static signatures alone, particularly as adversaries adjust emissions, configurations, and behaviours over time. The operational challenge is no longer just detection; it is understanding intent and quickly distinguishing between trusted, authorized activity and potential threats in dynamic conditions. IntentHunter is an autonomy-enabling intelligence layer that transforms real-time sensing observations into operator-ready contextual signals, explainable alerts, and analytics, enabling teams to triage and prioritize novel detections while keeping operators in control of decisions.
IntentHunter is built to support multi-sensor integration within the testing environment. Depending on available sensors, the platform can ingest and fuse inputs such as radio frequency (RF), electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR), and radar sensor modalities. It identifies anomalous activity using real-time behavioural patterns, inferring manoeuvre behaviours from trajectory and identifying coordination patterns across observations, then provides explainable context to support operator decisions. Rather than relying solely on static threat libraries, IntentHunter applies behavioural intent inference to surface suspicious patterns and potential deception behaviours, and presents results through an interface optimized for real-time situational awareness and post-event review.
“Drone warfare has changed the problem,” said Deepak Dutt, CEO of Zighra. “It’s no longer about ‘did we detect something?’ It’s now about ‘what is it, what is it doing, and is it friend, foe, or unknown?’ IntentHunter is built for behavioural intent detection, helping teams hunt drone activity based on intent, not just signatures, by turning multi-sensor observations into explainable, autonomy-enabling decision support. We’re proud to support DND’s testing objectives and contribute to Canadian sovereign capability in Counter-UAS.”
About Zighra
Zighra is a Canadian defence AI company delivering AI-enabled sensing, signal fusion, and electromagnetic spectrum awareness for contested environments. Zighra’s platforms apply adaptive, explainable AI to detect anomalous behaviours across RF and multi-sensor data streams, supporting Counter-UAS missions and autonomy-enabled operations.
For more information, visit https://zighra.com or follow us @Zighra on Twitter and https://www.linkedin.com/company/zighra on LinkedIn.
Noah Note: An amazing opportunity for one of our roster. I am very happy to see Zighra be given another opportunity to showcase themselves to the DND. The company has already had great success with partners like the CCG and Navy, and I am confident they can deliver here.
Of course I had to get a look at IntentHunter myself, and the rest of what Zighra was doing at CANSEC. I was highly impressed by the next iteration of the companies CUAS software, which was not only responsive and easy to use, but also had one of the cleanest UI I saw as CANSEC.
I'm always impressed to know that a company like this, with such a developed portfolio ready to go, is sitting around right in the Capital region with little love. There are many like that though, so many great Canadian companies whom never get a spotlight. I gotta gind a way to highlight more.
I worked for a company like that after my RCAF/CAF career. It was an EW company, one of the few IN THE WORLD at the time to develop a Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM). DRFMs allow a jammer to transmit thousands of of false targets, moving targets, thereby saturating the electro-magnetic environment. That was 30 years ago. Not able to catch DND’s attention, it focussed on foreign markets like S Korea and Taiwan. The systems were sold for training purposes since Canada has stringent export rules on anything the smells of military. However, there were some very interested parties observing from not too afar and shortly after making a delivery and that nation completed trials against their own air defence system, low and behold a delegation arrived at the strip mall company offering to buy a DRFM system on the spot. They were politely turned away, but it demonstrated how foreign, potentially adversary nations value the technology developed by our numerous tucked around the corner companies.