Edge Orbital is presenting at 3rd Coast Venture Summit and New Orleans Entrepreneur Week, March 9–14, 2026.
The defense communications stack is a $46 billion problem being solved by companies that don’t actually build communications.
Anduril’s Lattice is a brilliant command-and-control layer. Palantir’s Gotham turns raw data into battlefield decisions. NASA’s Delay-Tolerant Networking protocol handles interplanetary latency. But none of them solve the foundational problem: getting data off the edge in the first place.
The Real Problem Nobody’s Fixing
Every tactical mesh network deployed today — from military MANET radios to Meshtastic hobby boards — runs on some variant of ALOHA-based random access. Nodes transmit whenever they want and hope for the best.
The result? As node density increases, collisions increase exponentially. A 50-node mesh loses 30–40% of its throughput to packet collisions alone. In contested environments where jamming is active, that number approaches total failure.
Lattice can’t route data that never arrives. Gotham can’t analyze packets that collided in transit. DTN can’t tolerate delays caused by a protocol that’s fighting itself.
GPS-Synchronized TDMA: The Missing Layer
Edge Orbital’s Tessera protocol eliminates this problem at the physical layer. By synchronizing every node to GPS time with microsecond precision, we assign deterministic transmission slots. Each node knows exactly when to transmit. Zero protocol-layer collisions.
10-page PDF: faction breakdowns, zone strategy, mesh tech explained. Yours free.
The numbers from our validated 3-node battery deployment:
- ±3–4 microsecond PPS synchronization accuracy
- Zero collisions across sustained multi-hour operation
- 8-channel frequency hopping for anti-jam resilience
- 13-satellite GPS lock providing redundant timing
- Sub-$50/node hardware cost at scale
This isn’t a software layer that sits on top of broken infrastructure. It’s a new physical-layer protocol that makes every layer above it — including Lattice, Gotham, and DTN — work better.
Three Patents. 82 Claims. One Architecture.
We’ve filed three patents totaling 82 claims, including a non-provisional continuation-in-part covering orbital and cislunar relay applications. The protocol is radio-agnostic — it works on LoRa, Wi-Fi HaLow, or any time-slotted physical layer.
The implications extend beyond defense:
- Metropolitan mesh: 2,500 nodes covering 169 square miles of New Orleans for the price of one cell tower
- Disaster response: Drop-and-go mesh radios that self-coordinate without any infrastructure
- Space communications: GPS-TDMA as the coordination layer for LEO and cislunar relay networks
Why This Matters for the Gulf South
Louisiana’s defense tech ecosystem is accelerating. Programs like MavenWERX in Bossier City are proving that dual-use innovation doesn’t require a San Francisco address. The 3rd Coast Venture Summit and New Orleans Entrepreneur Week are bringing together the investors, founders, and operators who understand that the next wave of defense technology will be built where the problems actually exist.
Edge Orbital is building that technology in New Orleans. 33 years of wireless engineering. Three patents filed. Hardware validated on battery. And a protocol that solves the one problem the biggest names in defense tech haven’t touched.
The communications layer isn’t a feature. It’s the foundation. Everything else is downstream.
Christopher Wolff is the founder of Edge Orbital, Inc., a published patent inventor, and a 33-year veteran of wireless communications. Edge Orbital is raising a $3M SAFE at a $12M post-money cap.