US Air Force Selects Kinnami and West Virginia University for Next Generation Information Technology STTR

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Kinnami Software Corporation today announced it won a U.S. Air Force Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) contract in partnership with West Virginia University (WVU). This Phase 2 STTR award, sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) under its AFWERX Agility Prime program, will fund technology development focused on improving operations and outcomes of Personnel Recovery (PR) and CSAR missions. This research is in collaboration with the U.S. Air Force 563rd Rescue Group (RQG), located at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. The 563rd RQG directs the operations of one HC-130J Combat King, two HH-60G Pave Hawk, and three Guardian Angel squadrons in support of world-wide CSAR taskings. The award supports the continued development of Kinnami's resilient data platform, AmiShare, and WVU's research on robustness of navigation in challenging environments.

The ability to locate personnel quickly and accurately, and securely collect and share baseline biometrics and other tracking metrics, is critical for successful PR/CSAR operations. Kinnami's resilient data management platform, in combination with WVU positioning and navigation algorithms for unmanned drones, provides a new solution to increase PR/CSAR operational effectiveness in saving isolated personnel. Kinnami's platform can work in degraded communications environments and provides a secure means to share sensitive data, such as location and biometrics. The solution can securely provide data about the person being rescued in real-time to support mission operations more effectively.

"Partnerships like this help us field tomorrow's Air Force faster and smarter, and we're excited to be working with Kinnami and West Virginia University on this important research," said U.S. Air Force Col. Peter White, 563rd RQG commander. "As rescue Airmen, it's our job to save people who are experiencing one of the worst days of their lives. The ability to communicate in real-time with isolated personnel and various assets in contested and degraded environments could contribute to multiple strategic advantages for Air Force personnel recovery operations."

During PR/CSAR missions rescue teams need to be able to accurately locate personnel in harsh environments such as mountainous terrains or inclement weather. Network connectivity is often degraded in these environments; GPS may be degraded or denied, or adversaries may be blocking radio spectrum. Personnel may be injured or immobile and unable to communicate long range. Rescue mission teams need to collect biometrics and other tracking information securely and they want to share information about specific operations with other PR/CSAR operations in parallel. Additionally, rescue missions' assets, such as planes, helicopters, drones, Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOLs) aircraft, must communicate with each other and with the Personnel Rescue Coordination Center or other Command and Control agencies. Kinnami and WVU's combined technology intends to solve these complex problems.

"Kinnami's mission is to provide the resilient data fabric required to make the connected future possible and the autonomous future a reality. This is what the PR/CSAR missions need to advance their capabilities," said Sujeesh Krishnan, CEO of Kinnami Software. "Our hybrid resilient data fabric ensures the irrefutable data integrity and secure data transmissions even in degraded conditions that are required in critical CSAR missions."

"We're excited to be working with Kinnami and the 563rd RQG to advance our research on cooperative multi-agent localization," said Dr. Jason Gross, Associate Professor & Associate Chair for Research, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, of West Virginia University. "Our work is critical to improving outcomes for CSAR missions in difficult environments and we are eager to see this technology in action."

About Kinnami Software Corporation:

Kinnami™ provides a resilient data fabric that simplifies data availability, protection, and security for the complex distributed networks that are essential for making the connected future possible and an autonomous future a reality. Kinnami's software enables a unified data environment for trust, transparency, and newfound collaboration from edge devices to cloud. Customers achieve the irrefutable data integrity essential to distributed environments—including unsecured or free-standing networks and autonomous operations. Kinnami was founded in 2015 by a team of data management and security experts, and has offices in Boston, Washington, Austin, TX, and London.

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SOURCE Kinnami Software Corporation