KLM Defense Hardens Sentinel Series Against Jamming and GPS Denial for Contested High-Altitude ISR

High-altitude terrain has become one of the most electronically contested spaces in modern conflict, with mountain passes and border ridgelines increasingly covered by jamming and spoofing systems designed to strip small UAS of their links and their position data. KLM Defense is addressing that gap with its Sentinel T-60 and Sentinel T-90, two tactical ISR platforms built around active electronic countermeasures and AI-assisted tracking rather than altitude performance alone.

Both airframes carry a fully encrypted, frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) datalink as their baseline defense against interception and jamming. The man-portable Sentinel T-60 adds a Level 2 active electronic countermeasure suite, while the persistent-overwatch Sentinel T-90 steps up to a Level 3 suite for operators who need to hold station longer in denser electronic warfare environments. Both platforms are rated for launch at 29,400 ft AMSL with a service ceiling of 36,000 ft AMSL — altitudes where thin air and sub-zero cold already push most tactical multirotors past their limits, meaning survivability against EW has to be engineered in alongside altitude performance, not traded off against it.

The T-90’s Argus 1200 gimbal carries that same survivability philosophy into the sensor package. Its 11-TOPS onboard compute core runs target detection and AI-assisted lock-and-track directly at the edge, so the aircraft can keep a target in frame even through the brief link interruptions that active jamming causes — a scenario where platforms relying on continuous ground-side processing tend to lose track. The gimbal pairs a 48-megapixel day sensor with up to 160x hybrid zoom and a 640×512 thermal channel with AI-driven super-resolution to 1280×1024, giving crews full-frame radiometric readouts for positive target ID at range. The T-60’s lighter UC65 Pro sight, with 30x hybrid zoom and a 640×512 thermal channel, is built for rapid-response teams who need to be airborne and on-target within minutes of contact rather than carrying a large ground footprint.

Both systems run on KLM Defense’s proprietary KlmFly ground control software via the KAT 9 Pro and KAT 11 Pro touchscreen controllers, with one-touch takeoff/landing and the ability to redraw waypoints and altitudes mid-mission — deliberately kept simple so operator attention stays on the tactical picture rather than the flight controls.

“Altitude and cold get most of the attention, but the real design driver behind the Sentinel series was electronic warfare,” said Mr. Nagesh Sharma, Co-Founder of KLM Defense. “A tactical ISR platform that loses lock the moment its link is contested isn’t tactical at all. We built the T-60 and T-90 so the countermeasure suite and the AI tracking on the T-90’s Argus 1200 gimbal do their job together, not as separate afterthoughts bolted onto the airframe.”

The Sentinel T-60 pairs with the KAT 9 Pro controller, and the Sentinel T-90 pairs with the KAT 11 Pro. Both are available now through KLM Defense.

About KLM Defense

KLM Defense designs and manufactures tactical ISR unmanned aircraft systems under its KLM Sentinel brand, including the man-portable Sentinel T-60 and persistent-overwatch Sentinel T-90. Both platforms are engineered for extreme-altitude, sub-zero, and electronically contested operating environments. Learn more at klmsentinel.com.