Tempest Droneworx has announced the commercial availability of its Corvus MRDR (Modular Robotics Development & Reporting) platform, a tool designed to streamline the development and testing of autonomous systems. The platform, originally developed for internal use, allows engineers to test their own algorithms and control methods at scale using simulated vehicles before progressively replacing them with physical ones, without disrupting their existing workflows or relinquishing intellectual property.
The Corvus platform emerged from years of real-world engineering at Tempest Droneworx, evolving from a predecessor used during the company's successful FAA BAA 4One-to-Many Command and Control work. Each project refined the platform, culminating in the system now offered to the market. The platform's core capability is enabling teams to start with 20 simulated aircraft operating in real-world coordinates, then replace one with a physical aircraft, test again, and repeat until the entire fleet is real. This approach reduces the time and expense associated with traditional testing, which often involves aircraft, crews, ranges, travel, weather, and hardware.
Ty Audronis, Chief Technology Officer of Tempest Droneworx, emphasized that the company is not commercializing its control algorithms but rather the engineering environment that helped build them. "Corvus MRDR gave us the freedom to try more ideas, fail without breaking expensive hardware, and go to the field when we were ready—not because we needed the field to find out if something worked," he said. The platform works alongside customers' existing tools and control architectures, ensuring they retain their algorithms, methodologies, workflows, and IP.
Corvus MRDR currently supports PX4 and ArduPilot through distributed Core Robotics Object Simulators (CROS), with new firmware types in beta and future updates anticipated. The Robotics Aggregation & Visualization Node (RAVN) combines simulated and physical vehicle telemetry with ADS-B, Remote ID, RADAR, and other sources in a real-time 3D environment, allowing missions to be recorded and replayed for analysis. The product line includes 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.
Dr. Dana Abramovitz, Chief Executive Officer of Tempest Droneworx, highlighted the broader impact: "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." The platform is now available for pre-order, with commercial deliveries beginning in October 2026, and Corvus MRDR Defense scheduled for December 2026. The Corvus Platform Pipeline Beta Program is also open for early access to features under development.
This release is significant for the autonomous systems industry, as it lowers the barrier to entry for testing complex algorithms, potentially accelerating innovation across sectors including commercial, academic, public safety, government, and defense. By enabling developers to validate their software in simulation before costly field tests, Corvus MRDR could reduce development cycles and foster more collaborative advancement in autonomous technologies.
