Canadian light and beacon solutions promise to improve safety for SOF teams

The growing need to protect SOF teams from adversaries while avoiding fratricide in extreme environments has increased the interest in the safety lights and signalling beacon solutions produced by Canadian company Adventure Tactical.

Its products are currently in service with military and law enforcement forces of 24 countries, including the US and NATO members.

Speaking to Shephard, the company’s founder and president, Tim Ford, explained that the capabilities can be used in identification friend or foe (IFF), early warning and to detect laser designators and optical finders

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'It is very important for situational awareness and for command and control to know who is who and who is where at all times to avoid accidents, especially with drones,' he stated.

With an extensive portfolio of products, the company has produced 'hundreds of thousands' of products, according to Ford. 'In the last year alone, we have probably delivered over 75,000 units.'

The portfolio includes helmet, backpack, vest or K-9 mounted lights, IFF markers and tactical flashlights. The solutions were designed for deployment in water and airborne tactical operations, amphibious assault, explosive ordnance disposal, personnel recovery and law enforcement missions.

They can also be used in area marking, expeditionary landing zones and airfields as well as vehicle illumination.

The products were engineered to be waterproof up, resistant to impact, durable, ergonomic, easy to use and one-hand operable for deployment in harsh scenarios.

'Our primary niche market is Special Forces. About 90% of our market is military, and 90% of that is SOF,' Ford stated.

At the SOF Week 2025 exhibition, Adventure Tactical announced an IR sensor upgrade for its VIP light and Trilobyte beacon products, which increases the range of detection and the early warning capability.

'We have had the technology for over 20 years, but we filtered out a lot of false positives and other things in the new algorithm to make it as reliable as possible for the soldier,' Ford pointed out.

The upgrades are also intended to increase user survivability and command and control in addition to delivering real-time situational awareness while maintaining the products’ cost-effectiveness.

'What we try to do is listen to the soldier and our user, and then adjust our product to their current threat,' Ford remarked.

Trilobyte comprises tactical helmet lights featuring three overt output colours together with near-infrared (NIR) output modes.

A mid-range model of this family comes equipped with standard features like auto-sync between units, IR detector for early warning and the ability for the user to easily programme output signatures in overt and covert modes.

Meanwhile, VIP includes emergency lighting fitted with impact-resistant polymer lens. This series of solutions provides IFF capabilities and auto-sync pairing models.