Bidirectional Blue UAS Integration

The Texas Military Department has a national defense-related mission in the area of Rapid, Effective Decision-Making. This effort will provide tremendous flexibility for DAF to integrate sUAS and other robotics into their situational awareness arsenal. With video and telemetry from the full range of Blue UAS devices, flexible bidirectional communication between the DroneSense platform, TAK servers, and other software tools (including AI tools and capabilities), and cybersecure capability to connect with cooperating entities at the federal, state, and local level across domains, this TACFI initiative will empower the Air Force and subsequent commercial customers a dramatic improvement to their decision-making speed and effectiveness. The objective of the project will further augment our public safety sUAS platform to provide support for live streaming of video and detailed telemetry on all Blue UAS drones (versions 1.0 and 2.0). Additional enhancements include adding bidirectional API communication between the DroneSense platform at TAK servers with RTSP video. Software developed for this initiative will include the ability to perform detailed hardware lifecycle management for the associated hardware, with related cybersecurity and Dev Ops enhancements to ensure sUAS hardware and mission data remain secure. Finally, this work will add on-prem interoperability endpoints to allow for cross-domain and jurisdictional communication across web, private cloud, on-prem, and high-side deployments. DroneSense recently participated in a Phase II of the Air Force Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program which encourages small businesses to engage in federal research and development projects with the potential for commercialization. Their innovation topic has been worked through AFWERX and applied to AF SBIR-funded contracts in Phase II. This project will be funded through Air Force SBIR supplemental (matching) funds for a sequential award that logically extends and completes recent completed SBIR Phase II lines of effort. The requirement is expected to bridge the capability gap between Phase II and Phase III.