Teal’s 4-Ship multiple drone controller gets Tomahawk Robotics enhancements

Drone tech group Red Cat Holdings has announced its defense and security UAV specialist, Teal, has partnered with Tomohawk Robotics to further enhance the unifying control system of the multiple craft platform known as 4-Ship.

Teal rolled out 4-Ship in May to enable a single controller to effectively orchestrate flight of up to four different Golden Eagle drones flying both common or individual missions at the same time. With the addition of Tomohawk Robotics tech to the mix, that system can also pilot rovers or robots as well as UAVs, and permit immediate, seamless, and uninterrupted transfer of one or all craft to another operator.

Read: Teal to supply Golden Eagle drones to US Customs and Border Protection

Teal says an example of those capabilities might be a defense or security client using 4-Ship to fly a quartet of drones in a surveillance or reconnaissance mission, and needing to allow a secondary pilot break one of the craft apart to follow a someone leaving the monitored zone for reasons needing elucidation. 

A similar scenario might involve 4-Ship being used to control a pair of Teal Golden Eagle drones as along with one or two ground vehicles in a mission whose respective air and ground operations become considerably differentiated, and require a second person to oversee one of the two.

Those capabilities will become possible, says Red Cat Holdings CEO Jeff Thompson, by the adoption of Tomahawk Robotics’ Kinesis ecosystem as the control element in both both the Teal Air Control (TAC) handheld device, and any subsequent Tomahawk Robotics’ Grip and/or Mimic controllers used by Teal.

“Our partnership with Tomahawk Robotics takes Teal’s 4-Ship to a whole new level – allowing the warfighter in the field to simultaneously control the Golden Eagle and other unmanned vehicles, such as rovers and robots on the ground, as well as other unmanned aircraft – all within a single application on a single pane of glass,” said Thompson. “Allowing fighters to coordinate an arsenal of unmanned systems in the air and on the ground gives them a significant advantage in finding and subduing the enemy. This is a game changer.”

Read: Teal Drones tapped for US Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance Tranche 2 bid 

The link-up is only the most recent of Teal’s business development, following its announcement last week of a $1 million-plus deal to supply the US Customs and Border Protection agency its Golden Eagle drones. 

The company is also one of only two drone specialists still in the running to develop a prototype craft in a final stage of the US Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance Tranche 2 – the goal of which is to produce a rucksack-portable UAV giving fighters over-the-hill situational awareness.