Compute is, like, so hot right now.
Yesterday, teeny-tiny startup Anduril (they’ve had like, no news lately) unveiled the Voyager Gateway 1, a new “rugged, body-worn compute and communications system designed to fit within an operator’s kit.”
The idea is to bring compute allll the way to the front without the heat and discomfort of a computer, turning “every dismounted operator into a node on the Lattice Mesh.”
According to the company, the mini-radio-sized computer is already operational and on a recent exercise in the Indo-Pacific “supported autonomous sensing and target-sharing workflows at the tactical edge, enabling operators to identify and share information in environments where conventional networking infrastructure was limited or degraded.”
Convenient, that.
Everything is computer: Now, you probably don’t know Anduril as a compute company, but turns out they do that, too.
- The company’s biggest push into the whole “make sure the computers work at the edge” space was last year when they acquired Irish edge compute company Klas.
- As part of that deal, they unveiled the Menace-T—a compact C4 system (computing, communications, command, and control) designed for the most out-there environments.
- Menace-T was built on top of Klas’ Voyager ruggedized comms system. Voyager Gateway 1 is, too.
Plug it in: And this stuff is, like, proven. Even before becoming part of Anduril, Klas and Voyager were already used widely across the DoD.
- Klas’s Voyager Tactical Radio Integration Kit (TRIK) was selected as part of the Army’s Integrated Tactical Network (ITN).
- The Voyager Virtual Multi-Enclave System (VMES) supports the Army’s Expeditionary Signal Battalion – Enhanced units.
- The company scored a $11.2M contract with the Air Force in 2018 to provide Communications Fly-Away Kits (CFKs) built on Voyager.
- The company has also collaborated with General Dynamics to integrate GD’s encryption capabilities into Voyager.
- Klas was also a subcontractor on the Army’s Integrated Visual Augmentation System, which Anduril took over last year.
Long haul: So, long story short, they have some tactical compute and comms bona fides. And it sounds like the newest member of the Voyager family, like, really does work.
- The mini-computer can be wired or wireless, is super low-power, waterproof, and “allows for hours of extended command-and-control and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations—even in the harshest and wettest of conditions.”
- The idea is to make sure that “special operations forces can easily adapt to any situation in denied, degraded, intermittent, and limited (DDIL) environments to communicate over a greater range of comms paths.”
- Basically, even when you’re in the absolute butt end of nowhere, Voyager Gateway 1 makes sure you can still communicate and do all the fun computer stuff, but without adding weight or heat to warfighters.
Anyone have word on when the Anduril news spigot is going to be turned off?