In 2017, TILT Autonomy CEO Ryan Beall and I founded and led Rogue Squadron, a drone engineering team embedded within the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). We were both Active Duty military officers with extensive drone engineering experience, and we arrived at DIU at a pivotal moment. The Islamic State had developed a formidable drone air force over the previous year. China’s DJI had annihilated American drone companies like 3DR and GoPro. The U.S. was losing in a critical technology sector, both on the battlefield and in industry.
Over the next three years, Rogue Squadron became one of the most effective drone engineering teams in the U.S. government. Most of the story remains untold, although Raj Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff’s new book, Unit X, lifts the veil. Early on, Secretary of Defense James Mattis directed DIU to scale Rogue Squadron’s work across the DoD. With backing from the highest levels, we built Rogue Squadron into a powerhouse—part software factory, part center of excellence, and part policy think tank. We became the DoD’s top team for reverse engineering and exploiting DJI drones, built a drone detection network across multiple countries, and supported more than 200 U.S. government organizations with a variety of drone applications. We also provided thought leadership for a new industrial strategy to break DJI’s monopoly and restore a U.S. and allied/partner drone industry. Our work directly shaped the Army’s acquisition strategy for the Army’s Short Range Recon (SRR) drone and evolved into the Blue UAS program.
Perhaps our biggest challenge during these years was the DoD’s talent management system, which could not leave Ryan and I in place long enough to see our work through. Colleagues repeatedly asked us, “Why don’t you start a company?”
Four years later, after stints in industry and academia, we are doing exactly that. We are getting the band back together as TILT Autonomy, a company focused on rapid delivery of cutting-edge autonomy technology to clients.
Although our shift into the private sector will bring changes, our philosophy of technology delivery to the warfighter remains the same.
The TILT Philosophy
By warfighters, for warfighters
This was Rogue Squadron’s motto, and we carry that ethos forward into TILT Autonomy. As experienced military leaders and technologists, we are well-positioned to anticipate new battlefield trends, grasp the reciprocal nature of technology and strategy, and respond quickly to urgent needs. We now bring our decades of experience with operational units, the defense acquisition world, academia, and the drone industry to TILT. Our passion will always be for supporting the warfighter.
One government-industry team
At Rogue Squadron, we built a “startup”-like team that combined serving military officers and contracted software engineers. We worked in one lab as one team. By developing a strong culture and breaking down silos, we could move at breathtaking speed. Our flexible, open-ended contract meant we could pivot as battlefield requirements evolved.
At TILT Autonomy we believe in close partnerships with government clients. We know firsthand the power of high-trust partnerships with visionary uniformed innovators. In addition to my time at DIU, I helped found the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum (DEF) and spent my last year of Active Duty as Deputy Director of Blue Horizons, the Air Force’s flagship program for educating innovation practitioners. TILT is an ideal partner for federal R&D labs, operational warfighting units, the DoD’s “monster garages” like Task Force 99 and Unmanned Surface Vessel Squadron 3, and innovation organizations like the Defense Innovation Unit and AFWERX.
Small, high-performing teams can perform miracles
We believe small teams of passionate, highly-skilled individuals can develop innovative technology at an astonishing pace. Such teams empower smart people to do their best work and have low transaction costs. Our pace of development at Rogue Squadron bore out this thesis.
We are building TILT with this team philosophy in mind. Ryan and I have decades of experience with small drone engineering, and know phenomenal people across the drone industry. Ryan’s stints at companies like Anduril exposed him to incredible talent. We are intentionally and deliberately courting and hiring the best technologists we know.
Optimize for speed
The 2018 National Defense Strategy said, “Success no longer goes to the country that develops a new technology first, but rather to the one that better integrates it and adapts its way of fighting.” It called on the department to prioritize speed of delivery and continuous adaptation. Likewise, in 2018 Dr. Eric Schmidt, Chairman of the Defense Innovation Board, told Congress, “In my view, the Department tends to overestimate the benefits of consensus, stability, and transparency at the expense of speed and agility… If there were one variable to solve for it would be speed.”
Consensus, stability, and transparency are indeed important, and large parts of the DoD have good reason to emphasize those qualities. But DoD also needs front-line technical teams that know how to move fast. TILT Autonomy wants to partner with those teams.
Build things and iterate
The Department of Defense often spends years designing exquisite solutions before deploying new capability. This is especially true when it comes to complex “systems of systems” that require cooperation between numerous stakeholders. We need well-designed architectures and protocols for many systems, but on today’s battlefield, we also need organizations capable of rapidly fielding and iterating on new technology.
A tenet of agile development, and startups in general, is to release early and often. On a battlefield like Ukraine, the distinction between “research and development” and “operations and maintenance” breaks down completely. Much battlefield innovation comes from innovative warfighters using mobile phones, old but proven technologies like ATAK, and cobbled-together networks. Version 0.1 of a capability goes into production immediately, operational experience provides instant feedback, and developers and warfighters—working in close partnership—iterate quickly and often.
At TILT, we are builders. Period. Our bias will always be towards giving our clients something they can see or touch. Prototypes are extremely effective in shaping requirements.
Think about production from the beginning
DoD has distinct organizations for R&D and production. As a result, while the DoD innovation ecosystem produces an incredible amount of novel experimentation, much of this never reaches the battlefield. In fact, much of it is never designed to.
At Rogue Squadron, we repeatedly fielded capability to the battlefield. That gave us a sense for how to think about production and fielding. At TILT, we consider eventual production from the beginning of each new project. Prototyping and experimentation will always be open-ended, exploratory processes, but as much as possible we consider production requirements from the earliest design stages. We are also comfortable walking with clients through the entire lifecycle of projects, from early “divergent thinking” exploration through iteration, refinement, limited-run production, and larger-scale fielding.
Automate and practice continuous delivery
TILT Autonomy embraces best practices for modern software engineering. Rogue Squadron began at the same time as Kessel Run, which helped launch the “software factory” movement within DoD. We were early adopters of the DevSecOps approach, which entails a set of best practices for automation, continuous integration testing, automated vulnerability scanning, and continuous deployment of software. These practices dramatically accelerate speed of delivery while also improving quality and resilience. A philosophy of “automate everything that can be automated” is also imperative for scalability.
Skate where the puck is going
DoD requirements lag behind threats, especially in a time of accelerating technological change. Fortunately, innovative military officers are perfectly aware of this lag and continually bend the DoD’s R&D and acquisition systems to better prepare for the future.
At Rogue Squadron, we called this “skating where the puck is going.” We simulated drone swarm air base attacks two years before Syrian insurgents first employed this tactic in Syria, built remote ID systems for friendly forces well before the FAA-approved system, built “RF dark” drones years before their fielding by the Islamic State, developed DJI security mitigation tools before the vulnerabilities were widely understood, and worked on datalink and GPS/GNSS-denied drone tech well before Ukraine.
We continue to embrace this philosophy at TILT. Because we know the industry well, we track pain points and constantly think about how to operationalize the cutting edge of technology for the warfighter.
Work with us
Delivering cutting-edge technology to the warfighter requires a synergistic relationship between passionate innovators in government and industry. At Rogue Squadron, we wore government hats. At TILT Autonomy, we now wear industry hats.
Our core philosophy remains the same. TILT Autonomy CEO Ryan Beall, the TILT team, and I are passionate about one thing: building and fielding the best possible autonomy technology for our warfighters.
For us, organizations—whether government teams, academic departments, or companies—are merely vehicles for achieving this end. TILT Autonomy will provide a home for our ongoing work of experimentation, invention, and production of cutting-edge drone autonomy. TILT offers a trustworthy partner for innovative government teams, or for other industry partners needing drone engineering talent.
If you would like to partner in our mission, we would love to hear from you. Reach out at [email protected].
By Mark Jacobsen // Director of R&D at TILT Autonomy
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