A Swedish startup company has unveiled what it claims to be the world’s smallest ultra-compact radio, the RU1.

According to TERASi, a company that specializes in developing network infrastructure, the RU1 offers military-grade security and is designed for rapid deployment and secure communications.

TERASi is a spin-out of Stockholm’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

The company said the radio can overcome challenges that armed forces may encounter when battling on the frontline, and can be deployed anywhere.

The product is aimed at operational teams in hostile or remote environments, which can often struggle with traditional communications infrastructure.

TERASi notes that military operations and frontline responders can often face issues such as slow deployments, high costs, vulnerability to interception and jamming, and inadequate bandwidth.

But TERASi said that its RU1, which has been designed and built in Stockholm, is able to overcome such challenges, as it uses ultra-compact millimeter-wave (mm-wave) radios operating above 60 GHz, instead of using microwave signals.

It adds that the hardware uses “highly focused, laser-like beams on a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum, making interception or jamming virtually impossible.”

The company states that its patented Aircore technology allows the radio to be up to 40 times smaller and up to 100 times lighter than the nearest-in-class products, while the product can be deployed in minutes on tripods or drones.

“The RU1 creates sovereign, gigabit-speed wireless backbones that are up to 50 times faster than satellites, secure and adaptable to rapidly changing environments,” claims the company in its announcement.

Alternative to Starlink?

RU1 positions itself as an alternative to Elon Musk’s Starlink, which has been used in Ukraine since 2022, when Russia invaded the country.

Starlink has been a crucial communications tool for troops, but has also been controversial, too, after it emerged that Musk reportedly ordered Starlink to cut Internet coverage in parts of Ukraine during a counteroffensive in the earlier stages of the Russian invasion.

TERASi said it’s RU1 can’t be remotely disabled or controlled.

“With the RU1, we’ve created the GoPro of backhaul radios. We’ve taken what used to be a bulky, immobile piece of infrastructure and shrunk it down into something you can hold in the palm of your hand,” said James Campion, CEO and co-founder of TERASi.

“The need for sovereign, independent connectivity has never been greater. Our mission is to give defence forces, disaster response teams, and critical industries the ability to create secure, high-capacity networks instantly, anywhere in the world, without relying on satellites or fixed infrastructure.”

Campion is a co-founder of the company, alongside Adrian Gomez and Bernhard Beuerle.

TERASi said it’s in talks with pilot customers across several major industries for deployments of the RU1.