Teal Drones, the defense- and security-focused subsidiary of Red Cat Holdings, Inc., announced today that it has significantly enhanced the capabilities of its 4-Ship multi-vehicle system through a partnership with Tomahawk Robotics, the leading innovator of common control solutions.
Teal is one of just a few “Blue UAS List” drone manufacturers authorized to provide equipment to the U.S. military, and one of only two invited to participate in the U.S. Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance Tranche 2 (SRR T2). The ultimate goal of the SRR T2 program is to provide a rucksack-portable, small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) that gives fighters situational awareness beyond the next terrain feature.
Announced in May, Teal’s 4-Ship platform is a multi-vehicle system for defense, government and public safety markets that allows a single operator to simultaneously control up to four of Teal’s Golden Eagle – the first drone mass produced entirely in the U.S. under strict guidelines from the U.S. Department of Defense.
“Our partnership with Tomahawk Robotics takes Teal’s 4-Ship to a whole new level – allowing the warfighter in the field to simultaneously control the Golden Eagle and other unmanned vehicles, such as rovers and robots on the ground, as well as other unmanned aircraft – all within a single application on a single pane of glass,” said Red Cat Holdings CEO Jeff Thompson. “Allowing fighters to coordinate an arsenal of unmanned systems in the air and on the ground gives them a significant advantage in finding and subduing the enemy. This is a game changer.”
In addition, the Tomahawk Robotics partnership allows one operator to hand off control of one or more drones, rovers or robots to another operator without shutting down the operation. For example, one operator may keep his group of drones focused on surveillance of an enemy location while he hands off control of one drone/robot/rover in the group to pursue an enemy who is leaving the location.
The agreement will adopt Tomahawk Robotics’ Kinesis ecosystem as the control solution for both the Teal Air Control (TAC) controller and any subsequent Tomahawk Robotics’ Grip and/or Mimic controllers used by Teal.
Tomahawk Robotics’ Kinesis provides Teal’s Golden Eagle with the following capabilities:
- Multi-vehicle command and control (multiple Teal Golden Eagles) and multi-domain command and control (Teal Golden Eagle paired with unmanned ground vehicles).
- Simultaneous command and control of disparate unmanned systems.
- ATAK information sharing for increased battlefield visualization.
- Handoff of control to a secondary operator (many-to-many control).
- Providing center field of view coordinates for aided target recognition.
- Mission-planner level of semi-autonomy with human-in-the-loop decision making.
- A MOSA framework that delivers AI-enabled capabilities such as Reveal Technology’s Farsight 3D Mapping software, Athena AI’s Object Detection Classifiers, and other third- party advanced features.
“Red Cat and Teal have established themselves as vital partners to the U.S. defense forces in creating small, unmanned aircraft that give fighters in the field the advanced situational awareness that can mean the difference between success and failure,” said Tomahawk Robotics CEO Brad Truesdell. “The integration of our Kinesis AI-enabled control software into the 4-Ship platform holds the potential to create an exceptional multi-vehicle system that can play an out-size role on the battlefield. We are honored to partner with Red Cat and Teal to make this enhanced product available.”