Sovereign by architecture
Data residency, key custody, and model weights remain under national control. Every component is deployable air-gapped, audited to source, and free of third-country jurisdiction.
EUROPEAN DEFENCE TECHNOLOGY · EST. REGENSBURG MMXXI
SOVEREIGNTY IS A SYSTEM. WE ENGINEER IT.
Donau Defence builds the sovereign intelligence platform and certified autonomous aerial systems that let European nations see clearly, decide lawfully, and act decisively - without surrendering their data, their doctrine, or their values.
49.0134° N 12.1016° E - REGENSBURG, BAVARIA
EU AI ACT CONFORMANT · GDPR · NIS2
HUMAN-IN-COMMAND DOCTRINE ●
SCROLL
PERFORMANCE INDICATORS - FY 2025
MEASURED IN COMPANY TEST & EVALUATION CAMPAIGNS
0
bytes of operational data leaving European jurisdiction
0%
of consequential actions traceable to an accountable human
0+
autonomous flight hours across test & evaluation campaigns
<0 min
median sensor-to-decision time in evaluation exercises
BUILT FOR EUROPEAN MISSIONS
CAPABILITY BRIEFINGS AVAILABLE TO GOVERNMENT ENTITIES ON REQUEST
MINISTRIES OF DEFENCE & INTERIOR
BORDER & COAST GUARD AGENCIES
CIVIL PROTECTION AUTHORITIES
CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE OPERATORS
EU & NATO FORMATIONS
LIMES® The frontier, rebuilt as software.
Rome held the Danube for four centuries with watchtowers, signal fires, and roads - a frontier called the Limes. LIMES is its modern successor: a fusion and decision platform that turns satellite, aerial, ground, and maritime sensing into a single operational picture for national command.
Every inference is explainable. Every recommendation carries its evidence. Every consequential action requires an authenticated human authorisation - recorded in an immutable audit ledger that your courts, your parliament, and your people can hold to account.
- Multi-sensor fusion - correlation across EO/IR, SAR, SIGINT, AIS and open sources in seconds, not shifts.
- Deployable anywhere - sovereign cloud, on-premise, or fully air-gapped enclaves. No foreign cloud. No CLOUD Act exposure.
- Decision provenance - cryptographically chained audit of model, data, analyst and authority for every action.
- Coalition-ready - releasability controls and STANAG-compliant exchange with allies, on your terms.
OVERWATCH
TARGETS
EVIDENCE
ARCHIVE
FIG. 01 - INTERFACE REPRESENTATION. ALL TRACKS, ENTITIES AND DATA SHOWN ARE SYNTHETIC.
MILVUS® Autonomy that protects, never decides to harm.
MILVUS is a certified autonomy stack for unmanned aerial systems - named for the red kite that patrols European skies. It flies persistent search grids over borders, rivers, and disaster zones; finds people, vessels, and threats in degraded weather; and coordinates entire flight groups through contested, GNSS-denied airspace.
Its limits are engineered as deeply as its capabilities. Kinetic authority does not exist in the software. Geofenced rules of engagement are enforced in hardware. When a MILVUS aircraft sees something that matters, it does one thing: it tells a human.
| AUTONOMY | Level 4 - supervised; on-board fusion & route authority |
|---|---|
| NAVIGATION | GNSS-denied: terrain-relative vision + inertial |
| COMMS | LPI/LPD mesh · STANAG 4586 ground segment |
| ENDURANCE | 45 min VTOL class - 14 h fixed-wing MALE class |
| PAYLOADS | EO/IR · SAR · lidar · comms relay · drop kit (SAR) |
| KINETIC AUTHORITY | NONE - human-in-command, hardware-enforced |
| CERTIFICATION | DO-178C DAL-B · EASA SC Light-UAS · IEC 62443 |
FIG. 02 - GUARDIAN PATTERN SIMULATION. AIRFRAME TELEMETRY SHOWN IS SYNTHETIC.
DONAU DEFENCE GMBH - FOUNDING MEMORANDUM
REF DD-REG-2021-001 · COPY 03/12 · REGENSBURG, 14 SEPTEMBER 2021
« Europe does not have to choose between its security and its values. It has to build systems engineered for both - and stop renting its sovereignty from others. »
FOUNDING MEMORANDUM · REGENSBURG · 2021 · §1
Lawful by design
GDPR, NIS2, and the EU AI Act are not compliance burdens bolted on at the end - they are requirements in the build system, verified continuously, evidenced automatically.
Human in command
Machines correlate, estimate, and advise. Accountable humans decide. Every consequential action requires authenticated authorisation, and the record of it cannot be erased.
Protection as mandate
We build for the defence of civilian populations, critical infrastructure, and democratic institutions. We do not build autonomous weapons. This is contractual, not rhetorical.
Your data has one jurisdiction.
Yours.
Every Donau Defence deployment runs inside a sovereign enclave under the customer nation's legal authority. Sensing enters; decisions exit; nothing transits a third-country cloud - by architecture, not by policy promise.
FIG. 03 - REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE. DEPLOYMENT TOPOLOGIES VARY BY PROGRAMME AND CLASSIFICATION.
Frontier awareness
Persistent, lawful surveillance of land and river borders. Detection and classification of irregular activity with full evidentiary chains admissible in court.
Disaster response & SAR
Flood mapping along the Danube basin, thermal search after earthquakes, supply drops to cut-off settlements - autonomy where human pilots cannot safely fly.
Critical infrastructure
Energy corridors, ports, dams, and data centres watched continuously for sabotage and drone incursion - with anomaly detection tuned to each site's pattern of life.
Maritime domain
Dark-vessel detection, shadow-fleet tracking, and undersea-cable overwatch across the Black Sea and Baltic approaches, fused from SAR, AIS, and patrol aircraft.
GDPR ART. 25/32EU AI ACT - ANNEX III AUDITEDNIS2 DIRECTIVEISO/IEC 27001:2022IEC 62443 SL-3STANAG 4586 ED. 4DO-178C DAL-BEASA SC LIGHT-UASCC EAL4+ (IN EVAL.)
Engineered where the river runs.
Donau Defence was founded in Regensburg in 2021 by engineers from European aerospace, intelligence, and civil-protection institutions. Today, 340 people across five sites build and certify systems engineered to the requirements of ministries of defence and interior, civil-protection agencies, and allied formations across Europe.
We are majority European-owned and structurally ineligible for foreign control - golden-share protections are written into our articles of association.
REG
49.0134N 12.1016E
Regensburg - Headquarters
PLATFORM ENGINEERING · ASSURANCE · RIVERINE TEST FLOTILLA
MUC
48.1351N 11.5820E
Munich - Autonomy Lab
FLIGHT CONTROL · PERCEPTION
VIE
48.2082N 16.3738E
Vienna - Liaison Office
GOVERNMENT & INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS
TLL
59.4370N 24.7536E
Tallinn - Resilience Centre
CYBER DEFENCE · EW HARDENING
GLZ
45.4353N 28.0480E
Galați - Black Sea Operations
MARITIME · FIELD TEST RANGE
Build for the defence of Europe.
SECURITY CLEARANCE SPONSORED · RELOCATION SUPPORTED · 38 OPEN ROLES
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We provide classified and unclassified briefings to government entities, accredited prime contractors, and allied institutions. Technical dossiers are released to verified addresses under NDA.