ANDRO lands $1.25 million AFRL contract to enhance Android device networks

ROME, N.Y. — The Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate (AFRL/RI) has awarded a two-year, $1.25 million Small Business Innovation research (SBIR) contract to ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC.

ANDRO will use the grant to enhance the capabilities of wireless Android Tactical Assault Kit (ATAK) device networks.

ATAK is a widely used, feature-driven Android smartphone app that provides for military geospatial intelligence, precision targeting, navigation, data sharing, and situational awareness. The contract accelerates the further development, maturation, and transition of an existing technology called PRISMTech, commercially developed by ANDRO. The new plug-in is called PRISMTak.

The upgrades will enable ATAK devices with mission-driven, on-demand tactical edge (also called “fog”) networking performance to enhance connectivity between devices, data exchanges, and situational awareness.

The company is performing the work at its in-house software-defined radio lab with support from subcontractors Raytheon BBN of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and OmniMesh, Inc. of Syracuse.

“The contract will propel innovations across the TAK user domains to support military applications, including civilian emergency management and first responders,” company President Andrew Drozd said in a news release announcing the grant.

Timothy Woods, head of ANDRO’s PRISMTak Innovation Center, is leading the project with research teams lead by Chris Maracchion and Sean Furman.

“AFRL recognizes that the warfighter network is a power projection platform,” Woods said. “A forward operator drops a pin on a map, and a commander makes life-or-death decisions based on that information, so if data transfers are slow or lost because of bottlenecks that exist, grim outcomes can arise. Our work paves the way for new fog computing in the battlespace where high levels of information and data transport security must be ‘baked’ into a resilient cloud-native scalable network while maintaining quality of service.”

PRISMTak will provide disconnected ATAK operators and users with reliable and persistent access to the most critical data, regardless of where it is hosted or stored, ANDRO said.

ANDRO provides research, engineering, and technical services to defense and commercial industries in the areas of advanced spectrum exploitation, secure wireless communications, software-based waveform development, cognitive-software-defined radio networking, multisensor-data fusions, and sensor-resource management.