Tempest Droneworx Unveils Corvus MRDR™ Platform to Accelerate Autonomous Systems Development

Tempest Droneworx™ has announced the commercial availability of Corvus MRDR™ (Modular Robotics Development & Reporting), a platform designed to streamline the development of autonomous systems. The platform, originally developed for internal use, aims to address the significant time and financial costs associated with testing autonomous algorithms. By enabling developers to start with simulated vehicles and progressively integrate physical ones, Corvus MRDR™ promises to bridge the gap between virtual and real-world testing without disrupting existing workflows.

The core challenge for autonomous developers is the extensive resources required for field testing, including aircraft, crews, ranges, travel, and weather considerations. Corvus MRDR™ tackles this by allowing teams to operate up to 20 simulated aircraft in real-world coordinates. As confidence grows, engineers can replace a simulated vehicle with a physical one, test again, and repeat until the entire fleet is real. This approach not only reduces the need for frequent field trials but also accelerates the iteration cycle, enabling more rapid innovation.

According to Ty Audronis, Chief Technology Officer of Tempest Droneworx™, "We're not commercializing our control algorithms. We're commercializing the engineering environment that helped us build them." This philosophy ensures that customers retain ownership of their intellectual property, as the platform works alongside existing tools and control architectures without imposing proprietary solutions.

The Corvus platform has evolved through years of real-world engineering, including its predecessor used during Tempest Droneworx™'s successful FAA BAA 4One-to-Many Command and Control work. This lineage has resulted in a proven system that supports PX4 and ArduPilot through distributed Core Robotics Object Simulators (CROS), with additional firmware types in beta. The Robotics Aggregation & Visualization Node (RAVN) integrates simulated and physical vehicle telemetry with ADS-B, Remote ID, RADAR, and other sources in a real-time 3D environment, allowing for mission recording and replay for analysis.

The product line includes the MRDR-1, stackable MRDR-2 Expansion systems, and the eight-display MRDR-187 Enterprise, with NDAA-compliant configurations available. The first MRDR-187 Enterprise has already been delivered to the University of Houston Robotics Department, highlighting the platform's appeal in academic and research settings. Dr. Dana Abramovitz, CEO of Tempest Droneworx™, emphasized the collaborative potential: "The next generation of autonomous systems won't be built by any one company working alone. By making Corvus MRDR™ available, we're giving researchers, developers, industry, and government another tool to move faster and advance the next generation of autonomous systems together."

Corvus MRDR™ is available for pre-order now, with commercial deliveries beginning in October 2026. A defense-specific version, Corvus MRDR™ Defense, is scheduled for December 2026, and the Corvus Platform Pipeline Beta Program is open for early access to features under development. This release represents a significant step in democratizing access to advanced development tools, potentially reducing barriers for small teams and startups in the autonomous systems sector.