MALVERN, PA — Rajant Health, a subsidiary of Rajant Corporation, and Chord Robotics have expanded a partnership aimed at enabling a single operator to manage large fleets of autonomous air, land, and maritime systems in environments where traditional communications infrastructure is unavailable or unreliable.
The companies announced the integration of Rajant Health’s Cowbell distributed edge-computing platform with Chord Robotics’ TEMPO autonomy software, a move designed to support real-time coordination of mixed autonomous fleets operating across multiple domains.
The collaboration reflects growing demand for systems capable of maintaining autonomous operations in defense, industrial, maritime, and remote-field applications where connectivity can be intermittent and centralized control systems may be impractical.
Under the expanded partnership, the companies are advancing what they call “Flying Cowbell,” an architecture that turns unmanned aerial systems and unmanned surface vessels into active computing nodes rather than simply communication relays.
The platform distributes computing workloads, storage, and applications across connected assets, allowing systems to continue operating and making decisions at the edge even when disconnected from central infrastructure.
Chord Robotics’ TEMPO software provides one-to-many control capabilities, enabling a single operator to coordinate multiple unmanned systems simultaneously. The software is designed to support mixed fleets across air, ground, and maritime environments while allowing individual platforms to make autonomous decisions based on mission requirements.
The combined system also incorporates Rajant’s InstaMesh networking technology, which dynamically routes communications across changing networks and supports operations using multiple radio technologies.
Robert J. Schena, chief executive officer of Rajant Health, described the initiative as an effort to move computing and autonomous decision-making directly into mobile assets.
“Built on Rajant’s Kinetic Mesh networking platform, RHI’s Cowbell was designed as a distributed execution layer at the edge, not just a connectivity solution,” Schena stated. “With ‘Flying Cowbell,’ we are extending that execution fabric across mobile systems, enabling applications, autonomy, and data to move with the mission rather than depend on fixed infrastructure.”
James Cooney, chief executive officer of Chord Robotics, said the partnership is intended to improve the scalability of autonomous fleet operations in areas where communications infrastructure is limited.
“By combining TEMPO with Rajant’s proven InstaMesh scalable networking capabilities and their embedded Cowbell edge platform, we’re able to scale autonomous heterogeneous fleets across challenging, infrastructure-denied environments,” Cooney stated.
The companies did not disclose financial terms of the partnership or provide a timeline for commercial deployment. However, both organizations indicated the technology is intended to support growing demand for distributed autonomous systems capable of operating across multiple domains without continuous centralized oversight.
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