Continuous presence in the air is the requirement. Sustaining it is the problem. Kitewall keeps a tethered node on station in the 300–500 m band, drawing its power from the wind through its own tether and carrying a 20–30 kg rated payload. From that height it covers roughly 80 km of line of sight, where a ground mast reaches 11–20 km — and it holds that position without a fuel chain, a landing cycle or fixed infrastructure, which is what makes continuous presence affordable enough to actually maintain.

It is built for anyone who has to watch a large area without interruption: borders and coastlines, ports, airfields and energy infrastructure, environmental and wildfire monitoring, search and rescue, force protection. A small crew deploys it and moves it.

The node is sensor-agnostic, with open, documented payload interfaces, so an operator's own payload integrates without redesigning the carrier. Four payload classes are in qualification — one sensor per node, several nodes working as one system:

• Radar — detection of low, slow and small targets
• EO/IR — stabilised identification, tracking and designation
• Hyperspectral — material discrimination, including objects concealed or camouflaged against vegetated terrain
• RF/SIGINT — signal characterisation, and emitter geolocation across several nodes

Behind them: navigation without GNSS, cross-node time and position registration, resilience to interference and jamming, and on-board processing so the downlink carries decisions rather than raw data. Output goes into the systems operators already run.

The carrier has been developed as an automatic platform through over 900 flights, and holds BVLOS approval.

Kitewall AS, by Kitemill AS, Voss, Norway.