Bidirectional Blue UAS Integration

AFWERX · AFWERX TACFI · AFWERX

AI-Readiness Score

14/25

Pathway Speed

4/5

Timeline Realism

3/5

Problem Framing

3/5

AI / ML Fit

1/5

Award + Transition

3/5

Award

$1,895,390

Award ceiling

DRONESENSE, INC.

Awardee

Posted September 19, 2024

Description

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.

Score Rationale

TACFI is a legitimate fast-track instrument and the SBIR Phase II lineage gives this a credible transition narrative toward Phase III commercialization, but the award ceiling of ~$1.9M sits in the lower-mid range with only an implicit follow-on path. The AI/ML fit is the weakest dimension: despite mentions of 'AI tools and capabilities,' the actual work is platform integration — TAK server APIs, RTSP video streaming, lifecycle management, and cross-domain interoperability — which is fundamentally software engineering and systems integration, not an AI-shaped problem. Problem framing is reasonable given the DroneSense platform context and identified end-user (Texas Military Department/DAF), but success criteria are vague and the scope spans multiple workstreams without clear prioritization.

Source

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