Drone swarms that keep coordinating
A multi-hop mesh between drones, ground robots, and autonomous vehicles, with no ground station in the loop. Units find each other's sensors, verify each other, and hold the formation when the link drops and GPS is jammed.
A caller drone console invokes a thermal sensor three hops away over a GPS denied drone swarm mesh network, relaying drone to drone with no ground station and no internet.
unit-01 calls a thermal sensor three hops away with no ground station and no GPS.
Why autonomy programs fail on coordination
The ground station is the formation. When vehicles lose the ground link they lose each other. Formation, tasking, and deconfliction stall until it returns, and the mission does not wait.
Every unit is also a router. Traffic hops vehicle to vehicle over BLE and WiFi Direct, up to 8 hops. Coordination range grows with the number of units, not with radio power.
Routing follows radio, not position. DORS routes by who can hear whom. Jammed or spoofed GPS changes nothing about discovery, invocation, or delivery between units.
One mission, off link
What the formation does when the ground link and GPS go away.
- Link upUnits authenticate each other with fleet-provisioned OfflineIDs and join the mesh at the staging area.
- Ground link dropsThe formation keeps coordinating vehicle to vehicle. Nothing waits for the station.
- GPS jammedRouting follows radio adjacency, so tasking and sensor calls keep flowing.
- Sensor sharedunit-01 invokes a thermal capture on unit-19, three hops away, request and response.
- RecoveryThe opt-in telemetry record syncs when a link returns: routes, hops, failovers, decisions.
What you can build
Each of these runs on the shipped SDK primitives.
Wire DORS into companion compute and units route vehicle to vehicle over BLE and WiFi Direct, relaying up to 8 hops on radio adjacency alone.
One drone advertises a thermal or lidar capability. Any unit within 8 hops invokes it request and response, with no tasking server in the loop.
A vehicle joining the formation proves who it is with an OfflineID verified device to device, before it relays a single message.
Customer stories
How an evaluation runs
- Integrate
- The SDK goes onto your companion or payload compute. Units join the mesh and authenticate each other with fleet-provisioned OfflineIDs.
- Exercise
- A defined offline scenario in your environment: links cut, positioning denied, coordination and capability invocation running mesh-only.
- Measure
- Success criteria agreed before week one, evaluated against the opt-in telemetry record: delivery rates, failover times, hop counts, routing decisions.
- Timeline
- 4 to 16 weeks, scoped up front, no open-ended commitments.
The primitives behind it
- DORS
- Topology-based routing over BLE and WiFi Direct with automatic failover. How mesh networking works.
- Service discovery
- Every unit gets a request and response interface to every capability within 8 hops. How service discovery works.
- OfflineID
- Each unit carries an Ed25519 identity verifiable device to device with no connectivity. Credentials expire on a fixed lifetime and a replacement unit rebinds a fresh key. How offline identity works.
- Telemetry
- Transport transitions, routing decisions, and capability changes recorded on the unit during the mission and uploaded by the SDK when a link returns. How telemetry works.
- Your radios
- DORS runs over standard consumer bands alongside the mission radios you already fly. It adds paths; it does not replace or retune the links you have.
Robotics FAQ
How do drone swarms communicate in GPS denied environments?
Over a device-to-device mesh instead of a ground link. DORS routes by radio adjacency, not position, and relays messages vehicle to vehicle up to 8 hops, so jammed or spoofed positioning does not stop discovery, invocation, or message delivery between units.
Does the mesh depend on GPS?
No. Routing is topology-based, not position-based. Units coordinate by radio adjacency, so jammed or spoofed positioning does not affect message delivery or service invocation.
What is a mesh network for drones and ground robots?
A network where every unit is also a router. Instead of each vehicle holding a link to a ground station, units forward traffic for each other over BLE and WiFi Direct, so the swarm carries its own connectivity and coordination range grows with the number of units, not with radio power.
What is the coordination latency between units?
Direct-link messages travel at transport speed with no server round trip, and multi-hop relay adds per-hop forwarding only. DORS picks the transport for each message, and a sharply degraded link triggers an emergency switch that skips the normal cooldown, so delivery keeps moving.
How do units authenticate without a network?
Each unit carries an Ed25519 OfflineID verified device-to-device, with the address derived from the key. Keys never leave the device. Sessions re-key and credentials expire; a replacement device rebinds a fresh key.
Can we run this on our existing compute?
Yes. The core is Rust: companion and payload computers run it through the Rust crates or the Python binding on Linux, macOS, or Windows, phones and tablets through the React Native binding, and constrained boards through the no_std leaf profile, all on the same mesh.
How does an evaluation work?
A 4 to 16 week scoped evaluation against your fleet, your environment, and success criteria we agree up front. Contact us to scope it.
Does the mesh interfere with our existing radios?
DORS runs over BLE and WiFi Direct, standard consumer bands, alongside whatever mission radios you already fly. It adds paths; it does not replace or retune the links you have.
