High Lander and ThirdEye plan optical drone detection for Vega UTM

Date: 2026-05-26
Type: ARTICLE
Desk: Robotics
Topics: Airspace Surveillance, Drone Detection, Electro Optical Sensing, Uncrewed Traffic Management
Deck: An MoU links MeduzaX electro-optical sensing with traffic and flight-authorisation data.
URL: https://korthosrobotics.com/research/high-lander-thirdeye-optical-drone-detection-may-2026
Referenced profiles: High Lander (https://korthosrobotics.com/ecosystem/company/high-lander)

Image: High Lander
High Lander and ThirdEye Systems have signed an MoU to integrate optical drone detection into Vega UTM, connecting ThirdEye’s MeduzaX sensor with uncrewed traffic-management software. Announced on 26 May 2026 following Airspace World, the collaboration is intended to combine observed aircraft movements with flight and authorisation information for national airspace managers and critical infrastructure operators.
MeduzaX uses electro-optical and infrared sensing with edge processing to detect and track aircraft. Feeding those observations into Vega would allow an operator to view cooperative traffic and aircraft detected independently by the sensor in one interface. Optical detection provides a physical observation that can be compared with the identity and flight data already available to the traffic-management system.
High Lander identifies its Vega C2 and High Site dashboards as applications for the integration, including airports, ports, power stations and government facilities. The dashboards bring together detected tracks and authorised operations so staff can investigate aircraft that do not match the expected traffic picture. The companies plan to add MeduzaX as another input within Vega’s sensor-agnostic architecture.
The agreement follows High Lander’s April 2026 integration work with Dronetag, which connected Remote ID transmitter information to its platform while receiver integration remained under development. Together, these projects extend the sources used by Vega from aircraft-reported identity to external detection, giving operators additional observations to compare with planned and approved flights.