The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) this week announced that earlier this year it awarded three contracts for vendors to build a database that allows unmanned systems to operate in disconnected or otherwise limited bandwidth environments.
In January, DIU awarded these prototype contracts to Ditto, Syntiant
and HarperDB with demonstrated project capabilities. This week, the DoD unit announced all three prototypes proved successful.
DIU said under this project it worked with the Navy’s project Overmatch and Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, Pacific (NIWC PAC) to identify state-of-the-art commercial solutions to help the Navy’s unmanned systems “to operate effectively in disconnected, denied, intermittent, and/or limited bandwidth (DDIL) environments.”
The unit calls this a Common Operational Database (COD) and it specifically seeks to solve various technical challenges “that currently prevent the use of shared sensor data to support unified analysis/high-fidelity information computing within forward deployed devices, rather than within traditional IT enterprises.”
Under the January awards, DIU on Sept. 11 said Ditto provided a “resilient worldview capable of driving broader DoD initiatives” like Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), reliably syncing and distributing critical data from autonomous vehicles to provide personnel with a real-time operating picture for decision-making.
Likewise, it said Syntiant provided “performant and retrainable AI models at the edge” to deploy across a heterogeneous fleet for more effective unmanned systems while HarperDB provided a scalable solution for the broadcast, collection and analysis of real-time data ingest.
DIU said the HarperDB solution ensures “stakeholders had access to both raw data and a custom user interface designed to aid in operational awareness.”
The three vendors showed their proof of concepts through multiple government-run test and evaluation exercises, including at the Mission Autonomy Proving Grounds and a culminating event at Task Force 59 (TF-59) in Bahrain.
DIU said these COD efforts provide a low size, weight and power solution that does not modify current practices; “collects and shares data in a communications-denied environment to allow cross-vehicle collaborative autonomy to persist at the edge;” and is able to integrate into the fleet command and control systems and deployed autonomous platforms.
“The capability to enable scalable mission autonomy was proven in government-run test and evaluation exercises and will continue to be used and improved for the realization of the hybrid fleet. It was terrific working with these highly technically skilled, professional companies who executed successfully with demanding timelines and integration requirements of the DoD,” Mike Tall, Senior Science and Technology Manager (SSTM) at the Navy’s Project Overmatch, said in a statement.
Lt. Cdr. Al Williams, DIU program manager, added that “the combination of these capabilities will significantly improve maritime domain awareness / command & control (C2) in critical maritime [disconnected, denied, intermittent and/or limited bandwidth] environments as a key force enabler.”
In a statement, HarperDB said this testing confirms the company “delivers fault-tolerant data connectivity between autonomous aquatic drones, aerial drones, and ground command stations.”
It said during the exercise, its Distributed Systems Platforms enabled real-time data exchange between wave adaptive modular vessel autonomous boats, unmanned aerial vehicles, and ground command stations. The company added it is now “positioned to provide database management, common operating picture, real-time analysis, and network optimization technology to DoD and U.S. Government entities through a production Other Transaction agreement.”
Similarly, Ditto commented its technology generally minimizes data transfer sizes by sending only changes over available communication transport.
“Before Ditto, the high operational overhead and lack of interoperability between platforms and C2 systems made it difficult for autonomous and uncrewed vehicles to communicate. Ditto’s implementation of a common, resilient layer for data synchronization (sync) erases this issue,” Aaron Fabbri, Ditto federal product engineer said in a company blog post.
Fabbri added its COD product is scalable, interoperable, and being considered for a Project Overmatch production contract for early 2026.
“Once fully deployed, the Navy, Department of Defense, and other American agencies will have access to a common connection point for a wide range of heterogeneous assets, from autonomous ISR sensors to command and control software,” he said.
Syntiant said that its product demonstrates a compute-efficient AI-based automatic target recognition combined with a rapid retraining capability for unmanned vehicles operation in the DDIL environment.
In a company statement, DIU’s Williams said that “with Syntiant’s technology, the United States Navy will be able to deploy an edge AI solution across a diverse fleet of vehicles that will help maintain maritime domain awareness more efficiently and effectively, helping achieve its goals for mission autonomy. Syntiant’s solution can also run on many Navy platforms, eliminating the need to develop custom AI models, enabling wide scalability and lowering costs.”