goTenna Inc. has received a $3.6 million contract option from Customs and Border Protection to provide miniature tactical mesh networking radios. New York-based goTenna is a Founders Fund portfolio company that builds intelligent, scalable mesh networks that provide off-grid connectivity for smartphones and other devices.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
, Document Management Division, plans to award a sole-source contract to Logistics Systems Inc. for support for production capacity to produce polycarbonate identification cards—both Permanent Resident Cards and Employment Authorization Documents—and Travel Document Booklets. The production support will be at the Lee’s Summit Production Facility in Missouri and the Corbin Production Facility in Kentucky.
Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations, National Air Security Operations Center-Grand Forks has opened its new facility on Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. The newly renovated facility has enabled AMO to consolidate its unmanned aircraft systems and manned aircraft operations under one organizational structure and facility on the base. Previously, all manned CBP aircraft were located at Grand Forks International Airport. CBP operates MQ9 Predator drones and rotary and fixed-wing aircraft at the facility.
Planck Aerospace Systems has received a $200,000 award from the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate to begin testing its autonomous small unmanned aircraft system in operational settings. The award was made under the Silicon Valley Innovation Program in partnership with Customs and Border Protection. Planck’s capability enables a sUAS to launch and land on the bed of a moving vehicle, in addition to providing fully autonomous navigation along with a securing mechanism, advanced computer vision capabilities, and customized communications interfaces. The award is the fourth phase of SVIP and the company will focus on functional usability improvements such as improving user interfaces and increasing nighttime functionality.