A system for civil defence and critical infrastructure · designed in Poland
in war, sabotage, flood, fire or blackout
Iskarel detects threats and keeps communication going without cell towers or the internet. A network of sensors warns of threats, portable stations any phone can use and a main node carry the messages, and it all runs on one encrypted mesh. Every part runs on solar power and does not depend on the grid. Simple to install and to use, without any training.
Why
One system
guards both.
Critical infrastructure is where an attack begins: a drone over the cooling towers, sabotage, and the blackout that follows. The people around the site, in the school down the road and in the town beyond it, face the same threat and lose contact the same way.
Iskarel is one mesh for both: sensors that detect a threat before it is too late, and a network that keeps working when the cell towers, the internet and the grid are gone.
Protect
Saboteurs can damage critical infrastructure unnoticed, and a drone reaches a site in minutes. Knowing about an incursion is the foundation of protection. Solar sensors around a site hear drones and rockets and see intruders. Each detection hops from sensor to sensor to the main node, which alerts security and the crisis centre at the same moment, with no cell network and no internet.
Provide
When the cell towers’ batteries run flat, the same mesh carries the messages: any phone joins a portable station by the QR code on its lid, the main node stores and forwards them, and the satellite link wakes when a message has to leave the valley.
Every message is encrypted from the first radio to the last and signed by its sender, over long-range radio, satellite and the internet alike: relays, the satellite link and the internet only ever carry encrypted messages they cannot read. Every device has its own cryptographic identity. Lost or stolen devices are banned from the trusted list, and their messages are no longer accepted. The radio is multi-band and runs on licence-free bands: anyone can set it up and use it, with no radio licence or permit.
System components
Each level works on its own, without the ones above it, so you can start at low cost with two portable stations and add a main node, the satellite link, sensors or the tethered drone only when you need them.
For civil defence
A multi-platform application for command, control and site security: civil defence and the protection of critical infrastructure in one place. It opens on any phone or computer, with nothing to install. There is no central server: every portable station serves the app, so damage to several of them does not stop the system.
A solar panel, a battery, a long-range radio relay, a satellite dish and an energy management system that maximises battery runtime.
A portable radio with its own Wi-Fi. Any phone joins by scanning the QR code on its lid: nothing to install, no account, no training needed. Each station hosts the app itself, which is the key to a system with no centre: it works as long as any station does.
For critical infrastructure
A solar sensor with a microphone array that listens for drones and rockets and reports on its own channel.
Coming in 2027: a solar sensor with a camera that notices drones and saboteurs and passes each detection through other sensors to the main node.
Coming in 2027: a guardian in the air and a radio range extender, with a camera and an antenna mast up to 50 m high, powered through its tether for hours.
01Portable mesh
A portable station is a radio with its own Wi-Fi. Scan the code on its lid with any phone, open the page and write. The message travels from station to station over long-range multi-band radio, with more reach from high ground, and every portable station relays for the others.
Multi-band radio · no cell network, no internet · every station relays for the others
02Main node
Stations and the main node form a mesh: every device passes messages on, so there is no single point whose loss cuts everyone off, and a message has more than one way to get through. The main node is a long-range radio relay: it keeps every message in its store and serves a messaging page over its own Wi-Fi to anyone nearby. Messages from people beyond its reach can be carried by a portable station acting as a courier. A message for someone out of range waits at the main node, or is carried by a portable station moving towards them.
Solar powered · stores messages until they are delivered · Wi-Fi for any phone
03Satellite link
The Starlink dish is the main node’s most power-hungry part, so the energy management system decides when it runs: it sleeps to save the battery and wakes when there are messages to send. Messages go out together in one short session to the crisis centre’s office node. One 450 W panel runs the link around the clock from March to September. Winter takes more panels, about three in December, but the battery can still be kept charged.
Starlink · powered up only for the time of a transmission · contact with the rest of the country without the cell network
04Drone warning
Solar sensor nodes listen for propellers, jet engines, explosions and gunshots, and report over their own long-range radio channel, each alert signed with the sensor’s own key. Sensors pass the alert from one to the next up to the main node or a portable station, and on to the crisis centre. As one sensor after another hears a drone, the network can estimate which way it is heading, and the denser the network, the better that estimate. A future version will also detect a foreign language spoken nearby.
Detects drones and rockets by sound · solar powered · no infrastructure needed
05Visual detection
Solar sensors with a camera watch the area and notice drones and saboteurs. Each detection passes from sensor to sensor until it reaches the main node, so a sensor far out still gets through.
From 2027 · recognises drones and intruders in the picture · one network with the acoustic sensors
06Guardian drone
The main node’s drone flies on a tether. Power goes up, video comes down, and flying it needs no radio link. Lifted to 50 m, it becomes the main node’s antenna mast: the reach grows many times over, up to 80 km in line of sight, and its camera sees what cannot be seen from the ground. It stays up for hours.
From 2027 · up to 80 km in line of sight · hours in the air on its tether
When
Cell towers flooded or out of power, people stranded on roofs.
No power for days: no towers, no internet, no news.
Crews spread over kilometres of forest, with smoke in the way.
A team in the mountains, far from any cell tower.
Drones or rockets overhead, and early warning matters.
Coordinating an evacuation when the cell network is down.
A drone over the cooling towers, saboteurs at the fence: a warning before they reach the site.
Kilometres of pipes and tanks that no patrol can watch at once.
Children and teachers warned in time, and in contact when the networks are down.
Critical infrastructure
Power plants and ports are large sites, and a drone or an intruder can come from any side. Sensors around the site pass each detection from one to the next to the main node, which alerts security, whether or not the cell network and the internet are up.
Power plant
Acoustic sensors stand around the plant, outside its fence. The first to hear a drone raises the alert, and as sensors hear it one after another, the network estimates which way it is heading. Security knows while the drone is still on its way in.
A warning before the drone reaches the guarded area · nothing to connect to the site's own systems
Seaport
A port is open to the sea, and cranes and container stacks block the view, so no one spot sees the whole quay. Solar visual sensors around the port notice a drone coming in over the water and intruders among the containers, and each detection passes from sensor to sensor to the main node. Visual sensors join the system in 2027.
From 2027 · recognises drones and intruders in the picture · covers the quays and the waterside
Roadmap
Portable stations, the main node, the satellite link and the acoustic sensors work as one system, and we show it on request. In 2027 visual sensors join them first, followed by the tethered drone: a guardian in the air and a radio range extender for the whole network.
Demo
We show the system to crisis centres, fire brigades, utilities and investors: portable stations, the main node, the satellite link and the drone-warning sensors, working together.