ANDRO pushes the envelope on disruptive innovation

ROME — ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC is making its mark on both the scientific world and the local Mohawk Valley economy. Between a new headquarters and new defense contracts, the Rome–based tech company is well on its way toward its goal of leading advancements in disruptive innovation. Disruptive may sound like a negative term, but when it comes to technology, it’s all about innovation and changing the way people and businesses do things. For ANDRO, that means stirring the pot and pushing the United States to be a technology leader. “We’re trying to improve wireless communication,” ANDRO President/CEO Andrew Drozd says. The Department of Defense (DoD) needs it for soldiers — thus the many defense contracts ANDRO has received — but ultimately, most of the solutions developed for the DoD have commercial consumer applications as well. “We’re are also experts at dynamic spectrum-sharing policy,” he notes. In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (part of the Department of Commerce) oversee how the spectrum is used. That’s no small task when all forms of wireless communication from air traffic to weather satellites to our own personal cell phones must share the spectrum. In the U.S., spectrum management still tends to be fixed while today’s technology has become increasingly fluid, Drozd says. “This restricts how we do things in the United States,” he says, adding that leads customers to reach out to ANDRO when they need to figure out how to make their technology work on the spectrum. “We’re the unicorns in this field.” ANDRO has also carved out a niche in software-based waveform development, he says. Communication devices have a particular type of chip in them for digital-signal processing. Radio waveforms are the functions that convert input such as a person’s speech or typed data into transmitted energy, which is then converted back at the receiving device at the other end. The chips that carry the waveforms are typically pre-programmed before being used in a device and updating them with new technology is a costly process that can take between one to three years, Drozd says. ANDRO has developed a process to “flash” those waveforms onto those chips, providing a way to develop, test, and evaluate waveform designs much more quickly. “This is one of our growing markets,” Drozd says. All that growth meant that ANDRO needed more laboratory space. While it had been located at the Beeches complex for many years, the company decided to move elsewhere in late 2022 when it moved to Griffiss Business & Technology Park at the Steven J. DiMeo Campus. The company reduced its overall facility space — going from 22,000 to 8,000 square feet — and manages the downsizing with a work-from-home model. “It works well because it’s modern,” Drozd says of the space. He hopes ANDRO will eventually build its own small-scale manufacturing and research facility as it works closer to its goal of commercializing some of the technologies it has developed. “We’re trying to really develop more and more products we can sell,” he says. The company will also continue the government and defense work it excels at. ANDRO employs about 50 people and has been growing steadily in recent years, adding groups of four to five employees at a time, with each new defense contract it has landed. Those contracts include a $2 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contract to develop a 5G testbed environment and a $1.3 million U.S. Navy contract Phase II Small Business Innovation Research contract to develop a new type of autonomous radio frequency signal intelligence capability. Drozd was also recently reappointed to the FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council IX for another two years. “I’m the only one from New York state,” he says of members of the council, which consults and weighs in on topics related to the development of FCC policies. “I’m very proud to be part of that.” Founded in 1994, ANDRO serves defense and commercial customers in software radios, spectrum access, cybersecurity, machine learning, and more.