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ROME — ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC of Rome was awarded a two-year, $1.25 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate (AFRL/RI) 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 SBIR contract is a Direct-to-Phase-II award that accelerates the further development, maturation, and transition of an existing technology, called PRISMTech, commercially developed by ANDRO. The new TAK plug-in is called PRISMTAK.

The TAK plug-in is part of a larger TAK family of products used by military intelligence tacticians and civilian emergency managers. ANDRO’s upgrades will specifically enable ATAK devices unprecedented mission-driven, on-demand tactical edge (also called “fog”) networking performance to enhance device-to-device connectivity, data exchanges, and situational awareness anytime and anyplace.

The work is being performed at ANDRO’s in-house software defined radio lab and is being supported by Raytheon BBN of Cambridge, Mass. and OmniMesh, Inc. of Syracuse, both subcontractors to ANDRO under the effort. PRISMTAK leverages the Omnimesh Technology Product (OTP) to solve disconnected ATAK user issues to improve situational awareness and real-time decision-making at the tactical edge.

“ANDRO is compelled by the forecasted growth of the commercial TAK user market to commit to launching a PRISMTAK Innovation Center dedicated to servicing future TAK customers and the TAK ecosystem at large,” said Dr. Andrew Drozd, president of ANDRO. “The contract will propel innovations across the TAK user domains to support military applications, including civilian emergency management and first responders. This will be accomplished by enhancing situational awareness and rapid decision-making using a device-to-device approach coupled with implementing new dynamic spectrum access and decentralized architecture paradigms.”

According to the ANDRO research team, 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.

“The technology has implications for improving the efficacy of moving data ‘in the field’ for multiple purposes, from Cursor-on-Target to Map Imagery all with low latency,” said ANDRO Chief Information Engineer Timothy Woods, adding that such concepts have yet to be materially realized at the tactical edge. Drozd pointed out that civilian first responders and law enforcers also suffer from a loss of situational awareness when operating in challenging environments, highlighting the broad applicability of PRISMTAK for civilian use.

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 fusion, and sensor resource management. For more information on ANDRO including job placements, visit www.androcs.com.

Read the full story here Daily Sentinel

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.

Read the full story from the Central New York Business Journal here

BOSTON, Sept. 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — The Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things at Northeastern University is pleased to announce the creation of Open6G, a new US Department of Defense (DoD) supported industry-university cooperative research center focused on future open, programmable, and disaggregated 6G systems. Open6G is led by an anchor award under the auspices of the Innovate Beyond 5G thrust within the 5G-to-xG Initiative, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Research and Engineering) (OUSD(R&E)). The technical effort will be housed at Northeastern University’s Institute for Wireless Internet of Things.  Industry partners and collaborators of the Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things (WIoT) who are active in the wireless, defense, computing, and manufacturing industries include A5G Networks, AiRANACULUS, AMD, ANDRO Computational Solutions, AT&T, Bionet Sonar, Dell Technologies, InterDigital, Keysight Technologies, MathWorks, Mavenir, MITRE, Nexcepta, NI (formerly National Instruments), NVIDIA, Qualcomm Inc., Raytheon Technologies, Red Hat, US Ignite, and VIAVI.

Northeastern University’s Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things Launches Open6G Research and Development Center

The new Open6G facility will occupy approximately 4600 square feet of prime space at the Innovation Campus in Burlington, MA, and will be co-located with Colosseum, the world’s largest radio frequency channel emulator enabling the building and testing of intelligent, autonomous, collaborative, wireless technologies for military and commercial use; a massive AI computing capability; and one of the world’s largest anechoic chambers.

Open6G‘s overarching goal is to create a Federal-Industry-University cooperative research, development, testing, and commercialization hub to jumpstart beyond-5G systems research. It will explore themes such as future spectrum access and exploitation, performance of Open RAN architectures, AI/ML for inference and control, mmWave and Terahertz systems, Digital Twins, Augmented and Virtual Reality, and Web 3.0, among others. Open6G will provide testbed-as-a-service capabilities to its partners through state-of-the-art infrastructure spanning unique test facilities including Colosseum, Arena, XMili, and Teranova. Open6G will develop a common reference architecture and open source software for B5G/6G based on the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards and O-RAN specifications, via public releases of the OpenAirInterface Software Alliance (OSA) stack.

Open6G will be supported by an array of state-of-the-art facilities and resources within Northeastern’s College of Engineering: 
Colosseum is the world’s largest emulator of virtualized wireless systems. Its massive computing resources (CPU, GPU, FPGA) empower WIoT to research, develop, and test systems like 5G, O-RAN, AI, Spectrum, IoT, or drones. AI-Jump Start Rack’s unique AI+wireless experimental facilities can perform large-scale training of RF datasets collected on Colosseum, real-time, AI-driven signal processing, and model-free adaptation and network control, which allows WIoT to extend Colosseum’s AI capabilities. Arena is an open-access indoor wireless testing platform that can provide a real-time real-channel evaluation platform with fully synchronized testbed and can perform repeatable, flexible, and scalable high-fi indoor experiments. XMili (mmWave) is the largest mmWave testbed available in the nation; Teranova is the first testbed enabling transmissions above 1 THz (or true terahertz), and ultrabroadband real time signal processing. WIoT is home to one of 4 Nationwide FCC Innovation Zones, located at Northeastern University’s main campus in Boston, MA, and Innovation Campus in Burlington, MA. WIoT’s FCC Innovation zone caters to a wide range of frequencies and is the first and only Innovation Zone to support frequencies in the ranges of: 71-86 GHz, 122.5-140 GHz, 209-225 GHz, 232-235 GHz, 238-250 GHz, and 1-1.05 THz. RFData Factory is a one-stop resource for wireless dataset generation, curation, and sharing.

“Open6G will offer the expertise of Northeastern faculty, researchers, and students to create partnerships that will shape the future of our connected world”, says Prof. Tommaso Melodia, Director of Northeastern University’s Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things, and Director of Research for the PAWR Project Office. “We will work with our partners in academia, industry, and government to consolidate the role of Open6G as a leading national resource for next generation wireless systems, their applications, and their societal impact.”

Dr. Sumit Roy, Program Director for Innovate Beyond 5G at OUSD(R&E), stated, “DoD cannot afford to sit on the sidelines and rely purely on commercial industry to develop B5G capabilities; it must invest in open standards based system integration test labs aligned with DoD applications. The Open6G Center will accelerate core beyond-5G protocol stack components that serve both DoD and commercial wireless requirements and applications. The 6G oriented research, development, test & evaluation infrastructure developed by Open6G with Federal and Industry partner support will constitute a key element of North American leadership in future “Next G” technologies”.

For more information on Open6G, please visit: www.open6g.us

About the Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things at Northeastern University.

The Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things (WIoT) at Northeastern University is an interdisciplinary research center, a think tank, and a technology incubator promoting advancement in the areas of connected systems and their societal applications and implications. WIoT conducts cutting-edge research, develops new cross-disciplinary educational models, and new technologies for networked systems at the intersection between the physical and the digital worlds and on their legal, economic, ethical, and policy implications. WIoT is home to leading national programs such as the NSF Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research, 5G/6G R&D Centers, AI for wireless systems, and future spectrum exploitation. The Open6G project is managed by the Kostas Research Institute through a cooperative agreement with the Army Research Laboratory.

For more information on the Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things, please visit: https://www.northeastern.edu/wiot

805 Columbus Ave., Boston, MA 02120
(617) 373 – 4897
wiot@northeastern.edu

Read the full story here: Northeastern University’s Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things (WIoT) launches OUSD(R&E) Funded Open6G Cooperative Research and Development Center (yahoo.com)

ROME, N.Y. — The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) recently awarded $2.97 million in additional research and development funding to an existing contract with ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC.

The added funding for the Waveform Agile Systems Palette – Next Generation (WASP-NG) Hardware/Software Prototype contract, valued at $6.17 million, raises the current obligated amount to $3.83 mllion. The funds will further advance the state-of-the-art in software-based waveforms for radio communications through October 2024.

“The contract continues to propel innovations in true software-based waveform development and in the growth of the government’s software waveform ecosystem to support the warfighter’s needs, including advancements in 5G cellular commercial technologies and beyond,” ANDRO President Dr. Andrew Drozd said in a news release.

These technologies are just the “tip of the spear” in advancing the communications landscape for both military and commercial radio manufacturers, he added.

ANDRO’s WASP-NG significantly reduces the time and cost to generate validated digital-communications waveforms for the rapid field deployment of military radio platforms. The company’s Heisenberg Lab, under the leadership of Dr. Ashwin Amanna, chief scientist for the research sector, assisted by James Bohl, senior research engineer, is performing the work in support of AFRL’s Information Directorate in Rome.

“We took AFRL’s vision, implemented it, and demonstrated it could work, but to get here required a partnership of multiple companies and an ecosystem of stakeholders with a common goal,” Amanna said. He credited AFRL Program Manager Michael Gudaitis for his forward-thinking vision.

ANDRO has already been in contact with several large defense/aerospace and commercial companies interested in leveraging the WASP-NG capability to enhance their radio communications products and services. The company hopes to expand its research to serve a growing customer base and is exploring a possible separate division centered on delivering waveform-as-a-service to customers.

Located at the Beeches Business Park, ANDRO (www.androcs.com) provides research, engineering, and technical services to the defense and commercial industries in numerous areas.

The AFRL is the primary scientific research and development arm for the U.S. Air Force.

Read the full story from the Central New York Business Journal here

ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC is proud to be on the GALT team to secure USAF’s Weapons Directorate “Million Dollar Moment.”

GALT Aerospace was awarded a Direct to Phase II Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contract at the recent USAF Weapons Pitch Day to bring emerging Software Radio technology into the Weapons Data Link (WDL) arena. GALT Aerospace competed in this highly competitive, live Pitch Day (WPD LIVE (https://engage.airforceweapons.com/wpd-live)), to secure this, on the spot, contract award.

GALT Aerospace is working with the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), who has developed the Innovative Interoperable Software Defined Radio (i2SDR) technology and the USAF-EBZ Weapons Team to design the next-generation Weapon Data Link (WDL) compliant with Weapon Open System Architecture (WOSA). GALT will demonstrate this game-changing approach to enable much more operationally flexible and cost effective WDL across a wide variety of weapons. (For a technical overview please see GALT’s informative Post Pitch Interview at WPD LIVE (https://engage.airforceweapons.com/wpd-live) – under the “Live Stream Archive” tab).

The Air Weapons Pitch Event was part of an excellent 2-Day Collider event in late July, flawlessly executed by Accomplices.co and the AFLCMC/EBZ Weapons Directorate. GALT Aerospace made key connections with industry and the government team, including ANDRO Comptuational Solutions, LLC.

Click here for more information

ROME — ANDRO Computational Solutions, located at the Beeches Business Park and in its 28^th year of operation, was awarded $2,971,854 in additional research and development funding to an existing Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL/RI) contract titled, “Waveform Agile Systems Palette — Next Generation (WASP-NG) Hardware/Software Prototype,” valued at almost $6.2 million.

The added funding raises the current obligated amount to $3,831,000, which will be used to further advance the state-of-the-art software-based waveforms for radio communications through October 2024.

ANDRO’s WASP-NG significantly reduces the time and cost to generate validated digital communications waveforms for the rapid field deployment of military radio platforms. The work is being performed at ANDRO’s Heisenberg Lab under the leadership of Ashwin Amanna, chief scientist – Research Sector, and assisted by Sr. Research Engineer James Bohl and the ANDRO WASP-NG team in support of AFRL’s Information Directorate of Rome.

The company has been in contact with several large defense/aerospace and commercial companies interested in leveraging the WASP-NG capability to enhance their radio communications products and services. ANDRO President Andrew L. Drozd said he hopes to expand its WASP-NG research and development activities to serve a growing customer base and is exploring the launch of a separate division centered on delivering Waveform-as-a-Service (WaaS) to its customers.

Amanna attributes ANDRO’s success in advancing the WASP-NG capability to his resolute research team and the forward-thinking vision of the AFRL program manager, Michael Gudaitis.

“We took AFRL’s vision, implemented it and demonstrated it could work, but to get here has required a partnership of multiple companies and an ecosystem of stakeholders with a common goal,” Amanna 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 fusion and sensor resource management.

Read the full Sentinel article here

Central New York Business Journal article here

ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC has been ranked as one of the Best Places to Work in Central New York by the Central New York Business Journal.

Best Places to Work recognizes and celebrates Central New York’s leading employers. The Business Journal considers the best companies to be those which foster a great place to work, are innovative, promote technology, offer people-focused programs, and have great leadership. ANDRO met or exceeded these selection criteria.

ANDRO, a privately-owned company established in 1994, has been dedicated to research, development, and the application of advanced computer software for a variety of defense and commercial applications. ANDRO’s diverse portfolio includes research and development in applying artificial intelligence and machine learning for dynamic spectrum management and spectrum exploitation, cyber-secure wireless communications, cognitive software defined radios and networks, multi-sensor and multi-target tracking, advanced radar data fusion and sensor resource management.

ANDRO continues to not only make a mark in the community with its technological achievements, but with outreach and support for several local organizations and efforts. Over the past 28 years, ANDRO has been an avid supporter of the Central New York community with a focus on workforce development, motivating youth through STEM plus Arts (STEAM) leadership education, and an overall support of economic development.

Past organizations that ANDRO has supported include the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA), Kicks for Kids Foundation, Rome Art and Community Center, Rome Capitol Theatre, the Project Fibonacci Foundation, Inc., CNY Food Bank, Cure Sanfilippo Foundation, Rome Area Chamber of Commerce, American Heart Association, Bellamy Awards, United Way and FIRST Robotics, to name a few.

To stay competitive in today’s recruitment efforts, ANDRO values its vast benefits to entice entry level and senior staff members by providing full medical coverage, paid time off, tuition assistance, life insurance, and the opportunity to grow with a locally-owned and operated company. Visit www.androcs.com for more information on ANDRO, including job placement opportunities. The company is in the process of expanding its operations and more information on this is forthcoming.

Rankings of the CNY Business Journal Best Places to Work in CNY will be announced at its golf event and reception on Sept. 12 at the Timber Banks in Baldwinsville, Onondaga County.

Daily Sentinel, May 24, 2022

Dr. Andrew Drozd, President & Chief Scientist of ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC, has been invited as a panelist at The 36th IEEE International Workshop on Communications Quality and Reliability (IEEE-CQR). 

Dr. Drozd will join David Lu (AT&T) and Mallik Tatipumala (CTO, Ericsson Silicon Valley) on September 14th at the in person conference in Arlington, VA. Time of the panel TBD. View full panel details here

Panel: Machine Learning for Real-time Network Optimization – What Can Go Wrong?

Panel Moderator: Carol Davids, Research Associate Professor, CS Department and Founding Director, Real Time Communications Laboratory, Illinois Institute of Technology

Panel Description: Data and telecommunications networks produce enormous volumes of operational data.  Researchers today are exploring ways to apply ML/AI techniques to these data to develop self- regulating networks that can predict and respond to network events and trends in real-time.  As the network traffic increases in volume and complexity, and new networked applications place new demands, we can expect that the research of today will produce solutions that the network operators will be eager to adopt.  These applications could prove very helpful.  What do we need to do to avoid the problems that applications created using ML/AI techniques have produced in other areas?

Self-driving cars, for example, demonstrate that when their ML/AI-developed applications fail, they fail in spectacular and deadly ways, magnifying their errors rapidly and without self-correction.  Applications to determine the length of jail terms, the amount of bail, the terms and conditions of loans, university admissions, and hiring choices have tended to magnify social biases rather than help eliminate them.  Applications created using ML/AI techniques and applied to the output of surveillance cameras have been unable to identify women with dark skin as even humans!

Can applications that aim to provide real-time network management fail in similar ways?  We look at different types of potential failures: Technical failures in which a small wrong decision might escalate bringing a network down or amplifying rather than correcting the initial problem, and also the Societal failures: Could low numbers of Internet users in an underserved community, result in fewer network resources allocated to that community, amplifying rather than improving the available service?

These and related concerns will be addressed by our panelists, a diverse group of experts from the research and development, service provider, vendor, legal and advocacy sectors.

The 36^th IEEE International Workshop on Communications Quality and Reliability (IEEE-CQR), will be held in-person in Arlington, VA, September 13-15, 2022.  All speakers and most registrants will be on-site. Please see the registration page (https://cqr2022.ieee-cqr.org/registration/) for the various options.  The workshop offers technical sessions, original paper presentations, and keynotes panels designed to further career opportunities and the in-depth understanding of key issues impacting communications networks quality and reliability.