The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Squishy Robotics a Technology Enhancement for Commercial Partnerships (TECP) supplement to our Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II grant, which was awarded in 2019.
TECP supplements are intended to promote partnerships with corporate or business collaborators that can help SBIR recipients successfully commercialize their technologies. The TECP funding will help Squishy Robotics continue our work with two business partners, Blueforce Development Corporation and Silvus Technologies, Inc.
“We are pleased that the NSF has recognized the R&D achievements—especially advancements made to our Mobile Robot—that Squishy Robotics has accomplished due to the Foundation’s funding support,” said Dr. Alice Agogino, company CEO. “This recently awarded TECP will enable us to complete, refine, and bring to market the projects and commercial solutions that we and Blueforce and Silvus have been working to achieve.”
The TECP funding will support Squishy Robotics’ ongoing integration and shared communications standard work with the BlueforceCOMMAND platform, furthering the incorporation of several communications topologies including Long Range Radio (LoRA) and IRIDIUM technologies.
Silvus develops advanced mobile ad-hoc networking (MANET) radios including an advanced Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) waveform radio that is used by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Squishy Robotics has designed the CommsPLUS customized payload for carrying and deploying these Silvus StreamCaster radios and the TECP funding will help support additional electrical and software integration that will improve the communications interface for this type of specialized payload option.