IoT/AI Adapts Commercial Product to Answer U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command Need

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IoT/AI, an Austin-based startup, recently secured a contract with the U.S. Air Force’s Global Strike Command by answering a call to assist in emergency aircrew response.

IoT/AI’s Pico Personal Communicator, reminiscent of the Star Trek communicator and beaming device, adapted its commercial technology from an existing 14-ounce black box into a wearable patch-like device that provides alerting, audio commands, and acknowledgement capabilities.

The transformation of the product took less than five months and will now go on to second-phase prototyping by IoT/AI before potentially becoming a part of a program of record.

“We are developing the most secure and resilient small and wearable intelligent edge system on the planet,” said Dr. Kevin Montgomery, IoT/AI’s Chief Executive Officer. “This project with STRIKEWERX allowed us to accelerate a pioneering technology that helps users stay connected and on task — even in high interference and degraded conditions.”

IoT/AI’s technology is set to revolutionize existing 1980s technology used by the Air Force and will redefine how aircrews are notified of emergencies, according to STRIKEWERX, the innovation arm of the AFGSC Office of the Chief Scientist that hosted the “Emergency Aircrew Response Challenge.”

The IoT/AI solution uses its unified, secure platform to enable connectivity, collaboration, and AI-based data analysis in the most extreme environments, making this commercial technology adaptation optimal for expanded military use cases.

“We already have customers asking us to further adjust and refine this hands-free set of communication, location, sensing, and AI-based self-healing system to tackle other sustainment, tactical, and logistics use cases,” said IoT/AI Chief Operating Officer, J.D. Stanley.

Prior to the tech connection with AFGSC, IoT/AI’s founders spent more than 20 years working in geospatial analytics, artificial intelligence/machine learning, sensor networking ranges, applied digital swarming, and edge tech survivability in some of the harshest conditions and environments in the world.

Leveraging their time at Cisco, NASA, Stanford University, HP, and other notable career experiences, the company’s founders are emerging as a solution provider for today’s military challenges.

“Years ago, while at Stanford, I recognized the need to combine silos of technology into an integrated intelligent system that is simple to use. The Pico Anywhere SuiteTM of systems are the result and answered the call for the Air Force,” Montgomery said.

“We have a passion for the mission and are engaged across Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, and Special Operations Command to identify use cases where our dual-use, commercial-off-the-shelf-based technology can help deliver on the Internet of Battlefield Things in the near term,” added Stanley. “Well before the 2028 requirements.”