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NetSense demo in Miami tracks drones with unmodified 5G radios
In summary – what we know:
- No new hardware required – NetSense detects and tracks drones by reading RF interference on Verizon’s existing 5G network, with no modified radios required.
- A six-company floor – Verizon, ODC, Nvidia, Lockheed Martin, Keysight, and Astris AI each cover a layer, from spectrum and AI-RAN software to edge computing and tracking algorithms.
- Subscription model, rollout 2027 – NetSense launched as an “Airspace Awareness-as-a-Service” subscription, with pilots starting in late 2026 and wide availability targeted for 2027.
Lockheed Martin, Verizon, and Nvidia—along with Keysight Technologies, ODC, and Astris AI—have demonstrated a drone detection and tracking system that runs entirely on an existing 5G network. The demonstration took place in July 2026 in the Miami area, with the partners showing Lockheed’s NetSense Airspace Awareness-as-a-Service, detecting, tracking and predicting the flight paths of actual drones over a live Verizon 5G network.
The test was conducted at what Lockheed describes as a “crowded site” — meaning a complex, real-world RF environment rather than a controlled area. The system reportedly maintained continuous savings from initial acquisition to the end of each flight. Notably, none of Verizon’s deployed radios were modified for the demonstration. That’s the core pitch. Traditional counter-UAS solutions rely on dedicated radar or standalone RF sensors that must be purchased, installed and integrated site by site. NetSense instead interprets the RF interference that drones naturally create in cellular bands as they move, using infrastructure that is already on the ground.
The partners target public safety events, critical infrastructure locations such as energy plants and ports, and potential airport authorities on the line. Of course, it’s also the second drone detection demo in just a few weeks — the other being run by AT&T and Ericsson outside AT&T Stadium.
Under the Hood: AI-RAN and Edge Computing
Each partner covers a different layer of the stack. Verizon will provide the 5G spectrum and physical infrastructure. ODC provides the AI-RAN software, which exposes granular RF metrics such as channel state information, signal strength and interference patterns that base stations already collect but are not typically on the surface. Nvidia’s AI Aerial Platform handles the GPU-accelerated edge computing required to process these RF data streams with low enough latency to be useful for real-time tracking. On top of that sit Lockheed Martin’s algorithms, divided into a warning system for initial detection and threat classification, and a tracking system that maintains surveillance and predicts drone trajectories. Keysight completes the group with RF simulation and modeling tools used to optimize detection configurations and validate performance before and during deployment.
The elegance of the approach is also its limitation. Because NetSense reads interference in the cellular RF environment rather than actively scanning the sky, it is heavily dependent on the network itself. Detection will likely be less effective in rural areas where 5G coverage is sparse.
Dense urban environments cut the other way. That’s where 5G coverage is strongest, but urban multipath and high user density also increase the risk of false positives — non-drone RF anomalies that look enough like a drone to trigger an alarm. Filtering out the background noise is exactly the job the AI models are asked to do, and it’s probably the part of the system that needs the most independent validation. The Miami demo says it works in at least a crowded environment. Published false alarm rates across varied environments would be more convincing.
Commercialization and service model
NetSense is managed by Astris AI, Lockheed Martin’s wholly owned AI subsidiary, under a subscription-based Airspace Awareness-as-a-Service model – a managed service rather than a hardware sale. The system is built entirely on commercial off-the-shelf components, from Verizon’s radios to Nvidia’s general-purpose edge compute, with no specialized defense-grade hardware anywhere in the chain.
That is the economic argument in a nutshell. Traditional radar and RF sensor deployments carry significant upfront hardware costs and can take months to install and integrate. Because NetSense reuses infrastructure already in place, the partners claim it can dramatically reduce those costs and compress deployment timelines to something closer to a software rollout. For a city that wants airspace awareness over a stadium for a weekend, or a port authority covering a sprawling facility, that’s a really different value proposition than buying and locating radar units.
Pilot deployments are planned for the second half of 2026 and early 2027, with general commercial availability targeted for 2027. What’s missing so far is the fine print. Subscription prices, data ownership, and the exact division of contractual responsibilities between Lockheed, Astris, Verizon, and the end customer remain unknown. And that fine print is more important than ever here, because repurposing public telecom infrastructure for airspace surveillance raises legitimate privacy and civil liberties questions — what data is collected, how it’s processed, and whether a system built to sense drones could quietly expand its scope to track other devices. None of the partners have yet addressed this publicly.
6G ISAC roadmap
Lockheed presents NetSense as an answer to a growing “gap in public protection” as consumer drones are cheaper and more capable of illegal surveillance, smuggling or direct attacks. This framing is self-serving, but the underlying trend is real, and existing counter-UAS options are expensive and slow to deploy in civilian settings.
The more interesting story may be what this demonstration represents for the telecom industry. Integrated Sensing and Communication – ISAC – is a headline feature of the 6G roadmap, the idea being that future networks will sense their environment as a native capability rather than just moving data. NetSense is effectively an argument that operators don’t have to wait for formal 6G standards to get there. Verizon, Lockheed, and Nvidia are positioning themselves as early leaders in ISAC by proving that it can be scaled to today’s 5G networks and software.
The roadmap calls for deployment over non-Verizon 5G networks and eventually native integration into 6G. Scaling over Verizon, however, is easier said than done. It requires buy-in from competing operators and strict interoperability across different 5G architectures.