Persistent Systems has announced that Tomahawk Robotics has joined the Wave Relay Ecosystem, which is a growing industry alliance of unmanned system and sensor companies that use Persistent’s Wave Relay mobile ad hoc network (MANET) as their preferred network.

As part of this agreement, Tomahawk Robotics will make Kinesis, the company's Android-based common control system for leading UGVs and UAS, available for Persistent's MPU5 Android-based MANET radio and Rugged Display and Controller (RDC).

“Basically, this provides a ‘universal controller’ for unmanned systems that resides on the MPU5 and is accessed with the RDC, both of which the dismounted warfighter would already be carrying,” explains Brian Mcdonald, field operations director at Persistent Systems.

“So, you eliminate the weight and cost of extra hardware, and you bring Tomahawk’s all-encompassing Kinesis capability to everyone on the tactical team, not just the UxV operator.”

The MPU5 runs the Android operating system, which enables apps such as Kinesis to be loaded directly onto the radio, while the RDC provides the touch screen, joysticks, and gamepad buttons in a formfactor the size of a commercial smartphone.

“With the intuitive, easy-to-use Kinesis, you can operate any unmanned system on the land, in the air or on the water,” says Matt Summer, CTO at Tomahawk Robotics. “You don't need specialized controllers or training for each individual system.”

Should the mission require, as in the case of finely manipulating the arm of a bomb disposal robot, the MPU5 and RDC can operate seamlessly with the Tomahawk Robotics Mimic spatial controller.