US Navy Awards Tomahawk Robotics $55M Contract to Produce Encrypted Radios

The U.S. Navy has awarded a potential five-year, $55 million contract to Tomahawk Robotics for full-rate production of the Flexible Cyber Secure Radio, an encrypted solution compliant with the Department of Defense’s Joint Communications Architecture for Unmanned Systems standard. FlexCSR is built on an embedded radio component designed by Persistent Systems and interchangeable modules that allow operators to switch between multiple frequencies as needed.

Tomahawk Robotics developed the hardware in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. In a press release, the company said FlexCSR would facilitate interoperability with explosive ordnance disposal robots, ensure information security and ease equipment burdens typically associated with secure communications.

According to CEO Brad Truesdell, FlexCSR represents an ongoing shift by the U.S. military toward robotic platforms with connectivity adapted to “challenging operating environments of the future,” Tomahawk Robotics said Friday.

In 2022, the U.S. Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory tasked the company to develop a control platform for unmanned systems using sensors and radios.