Ponte de Sor: AR5´s new home

It’s official: we’re opening a new facility in Portugal! In Ponte de Sor, a city near the Spanish border, we’re building a state-of-the-art factory where we’ll develop and manufacture our larger UAS platforms, like the AR5 Life Ray. We’re thrilled to be able to have such an important tool at our disposal, especially as it is located inside a perfectly fitted airfield that will allow us to test and perfect our systems. 

We’ll also be making a huge social and economic impact of a region that has been heavily affected by unemployment, and from which people have to leave to find suitable jobs. We’ll start welcoming new members of the team at the end of the year, and we expect to start having the facility operational within the first months of 2016.

MORE: Making Smartwatches our business

MORE has made another breakthrough by allowing our costumers to run it on Smartwatches, both on IOS and Android platforms.
This new milestone is helping us to offer our customers a wider set of options, and its another step towards having a technology that runs on almost every device.
MORE (Model Once Run Everywhere) was our first technology platform, and it allowed us to grow by creating new products and services, and entering new markets with a revolutionary approach. Today, MORE powers systems so diverse as Lisbon’s ePark, Santander’s Mobile Apps, Euromedic’s VIDACare, or our own MOBIZY offering. With MORE, we have the privilege, and the responsibility, of touching the lives of hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world, and we’ll continue to work hard to offer them the best possible experience.

GAMALINK in Space!

TEKEVER and the Shanghai Engineering Center for Microsatellites (SECM) – a major global player in the micro-satellite market - signed a contract focused on using GAMALINK as an enabling technology for SECM’s ambitious strategy for the global microsatellite market. GAMALINK is a communication system designed to provide the infrastructure for creating an internet-like networking environment in space. The first GAMALINK-enabled satellite mission will be launched in September 2015, creating a major landmark for TEKEVER, but also marking a step forward in the space market. Congrats team!

TEKEVER, ViaSat Enter Strategic Alliance to Expand the Civilian Use of Drones with Advanced Satellite Communications

Strategic alliance announced at the Paris Air Show

Maritime Monitoring and Critical Infrastructure Surveillance to be the First Planned Missions for Demonstration

PARIS, June 18, 2015 - The TEKEVER Group<http://www.tekever.com>, a leading Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) manufacturer, and ViaSat<http://www.viasat.com>, an innovator in broadband and communication technologies and services, have announced a strategic alliance to expand the civilian use of drones with advanced satellite communications. This joint collaboration will bring ViaSat’s communication technologies onto TEKEVER’s drone platforms to push the boundaries of UAS range in civilian Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) applications. Research and development (R&D) activities will combine TEKEVER platforms and ViaSat hardware to develop communication systems for current and next-generation civilian drone applications.

“ViaSat is on the forefront of satellite communication technologies and we’re proud to join them in a quest to innovate the civilian UAS market with forward-thinking long-range applications,” said Ricardo Mendes, TEKEVER Group chief operating officer, during the 2015 Paris Air Show. “This partnership will increase our capability to deliver more effective solutions for multiple mission profiles, including maritime surveillance, emergency response and monitoring of critical infrastructures.”

“TEKEVER is delivering state of the art unmanned systems to both the military and civilian markets. Joining them will allow us to adapt our technology to new types of applications that we believe will change the future of civilian BLOS UAS applications, ” said Stefano Vaccaro, managing director of ViaSat Antenna Systems Division, Switzerland. “This has a significant worldwide market potential that aligns with the strategic roadmap of both companies.”

ViaSat technologies will include satellite communication products that are robust and can be integrated with Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems driving the use of drones in “unsegregated” or civilian airspace. The products that will be developed through the TEKEVER and ViaSat strategic alliance will expand the range of civilian service applications for drone usage through enabling smaller platforms and longer missions.

The first use cases that will be demonstrated include: maritime monitoring and critical infrastructure surveillance.

About TEKEVER

TEKEVER is a technological group based out of Portugal that develops innovative technologies for the Enterprise, Aerospace, Defense and Security Markets. TEKEVER contributes to the modernization and evolution of these markets, by developing and delivering advanced technology and products that improve the quality of communication, information, and execution capabilities in organizations. In the UAV sector, TEKEVER is a leading OEM platforms manufacturer and systems provider. The technology and products created in the Aerospace and Defense area have already resulted in three spin-offs<http://www.tekever.com/en/group/structure/> and several successful product lines<http://www.tekever.com/en/divisions/asds/products/>. For more information please visit TEKEVER atwww.tekever.com<http://www.tekever.com>, or follow the company on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

About ViaSat

ViaSat engineers creative ways to connect people to new communication applications with networking systems and services that enable a fast, cost-efficient, secure, and high-performance connection to virtually any location.  The Company offers Exede® high-speed internet<http://www.exede.com> and broadband services in North America; worldwide mobile satellite services, including global tracking and messaging as well as high-speed in-flight internet; satellite broadband networking systems; Wi-Fi and other hotspot operations, support, and management systems; network-centric military communication systems for the U.S. and allied governments; cybersecurity; and communication system design. Headquartered in Carlsbad, California, ViaSat employs more than 3,400 people worldwide in the areas of technology development, customer service, and network operations. For more information, please visit ViaSat at www.viasat.com<http://www.viasat.com>, or follow the Company on Facebook<https://www.facebook.com/ViaSat>, Twitter<https://twitter.com/ViaSatInc>, LinkedIn<https://www.linkedin.com/company/viasat> and YouTube<https://www.youtube.com/user/ViaSatInc>.

TEKEVER builds up a UAV program in Azores

The TEKEVER group is building up an unmanned aerial system program in the Azores islands (Portugal) to perform multiple types of near shore and maritime missions, including search and rescue, surveillance, illegal fishing, maritime patrol and pollution detection, among others. The Azores islands, because of their geography and location, are a strategic area to test and improve the usage of this type of technology to support missions that are otherwise extremely costly and complex to perform.

The program starts by having a six-month-long trial using a variety of TEKEVER platforms and sensor combinations, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the different systems for the extreme scenarios that can be found in the islands. The program is a result from the close cooperation between TEKEVER and theAzorean Government.

What about Azores?  The Azores islands rise out of the ocean where three continental plates rub against one another forming mountains in the deep mid Atlantic. They are an autonomous region of Portugal, consisting of nine small volcanic islands midway between Newfoundland and Lisbon. The size of the AzoresExclusive Economic Zone is about 1 000 000 km2 with an average depth of about 3000 meters.

“Yes, it's huge! Portugal has the 3rd largest Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the EU and the 10th largest EEZ in the world! On the other hand, the Azores are a strategic place for aviation. The Santa Maria (Azores) air traffic control center covers the airspace above a vast area in the North Atlantic Ocean, starting in 15° west until 40° west, descending approximately to the latitude of the Cape Verde archipelago”, referred Ricardo Mendes, TEKEVER COO.

The trials began in April and the company is currently studying the possibility of a permanent presence in the archipelago.

PRESS RELEASE - TEKEVER and Santos Lab sign purchase agreement

TEKEVER and Santos Lab sign purchase agreement

Rio de Janeiro, 14th of April 2015

TEKEVER Group has signed a Purchase Agreement to acquire a significant interest in Santos Lab, the leading Brazilian UAS (Unmanned Aerial System) manufacturer, the Portuguese company announced at the LAAD DEFENCE & SECURITY 2015 expo today.

Both partners will join their capabilities to integrate technology, offer new products and join commercial efforts at a global level, with particular focus on the South American markets. This agreement is the next step of a global strategic partnership announced last year at the Farnborough International Airshow (UK).

The AR2 Carcará is the first product to be jointly launched from this groundbreaking partnership and is currently in operation by the Brazilian Navy. The AR2 Carcará includes a water-proof airframe designed and produced by Santos Lab that is specifically aimed at maritime and amphibious operations.

The Unmanned Air System is fitted with advanced onboard processing, communications equipment and ground control systems provided by TEKEVER, allowing the system to be fully interoperable with all other TEKEVER UAS products, and providing a new range of operational capabilities.

“TEKEVER’s participation in Santos Lab will always preserve this company as a strategic company for the Brazilian security market. We signed the purchase agreement today and we have until the end of the semester to close it. Although, from now on, both companies are going to develop UAS using the groundbreaking technologies from TEKEVER and the amazing structures from Santos Lab. This incredible cooperation will benefit the companies’ internationalization and our business strategies and add significant value to our positions in the Aerospace, Defence and Security markets”, said Ricardo Mendes, COO of TEKEVER.

“With this agreement, we have created a win-win relationship. Because of this groundbreaking partnership, AR2 Carcará is a more flexible, versatile and reliable product. And this is just the beginning”, agreed Gabriel Klabin, CEO of Santos Labs.

TEKEVER working on a INTERNET-CONNECTED DRONES solution

TEKEVER and a other partners are working on a solution to delivering broadband capacity to remote places, using drones.
The UMOBILE project (“Universal, Mobile-centric and Opportunistic Communications Architecture”) aims to investigate and develop a communication and information infrastructure for underserved, rural, developing regions inline with the objectives of the Global Access to the Internet for All.
The project has been funded from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme with 3M Euros. 
Find more inf. @ http://umobile-project.eu