Cachai

Cachai is a Virginia-based B2B dual-use software startup providing the “collaborative” part of collaborative autonomy for mission-critical systems in defense and aerospace. Our flagship product, Altiro, creates a hive mind for autonomous devices at or beyond the edge, so that they can synchronize in real time, at scale, and with no single point of failure or cloud dependence. Other options to achieve this are either custom-built for a specific system or rely on a high-bandwidth cloud provider connection. We are currently oriented toward Defense & Aerospace applications (e.g. UxV swarming, track correlation, and resilient local C2 in denied or degraded environments.) Future commercial applications include smart cities and industrial automation.

Altiro’s synchronized state management capability is scalable and self-contained, with no reliance on a cloud connection. Because of this distinction from other Edge IoT orchestration tools, we are targeting mission-critical, often regulated applications for organizations that are concerned about the risks or costs of cloud dependency.

Technology Overview 

Altiro by Cachai adds a real-time stateful orchestration software layer to existing autonomy stacks. This introduces a new, distributed model for collaborative autonomy that is more resilient, consistent, and trustworthy while remaining highly scalable and cost-effective. 

As a distributed system, devices with Altiro onboard share a control plane that supports a synchronized State Datastore containing whatever shared information is needed to execute the mission. 

While our core Altiro IP is designed for commercial and industrial environments that have relatively strong local area networks, AltiroX extends those capabilities to devices that communicate over wireless in unpredictable or dangerous settings. This is the cutting edge of consensus and state management development, enabling a “hive mind” among autonomous unmanned systems like drones and missile defense. It offers potential solutions to existing problems with non-RF wireless communications, and is compatible with any type of network connection

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Single-Node autonomous systems tend to include the Drone/Device-Level Operations layers on the right side of the figure: Individual Flight Autonomy, Local Sensor Fusion, etc. 

Emerging collaborative autonomous systems (e.g. leader-follower, one-to-many, or centralized track correlation) add sensor fusion, world modeling, automation/orchestration, and mission logic as well as a stateless or centralized control plane and communication protocols. 

By adding the four highlighted layers in the Swarm-Level Distributed Operations stack – distributed state datastore, stateful distributed control plane, system time sync, and trust & node authorization – Altiro makes that control plane stateful and distributed. The impact of this is to make coordination resilient and efficient as possible under degraded comms, and enable fault-tolerant orchestration in place of automation. ​​It allows the swarm to remember, replicate, and rebuild mission-critical context across time and node failures – and, if desired, explain its behavior later. Authorized nodes recognize each other and can join and leave the swarm without data loss. It enables multi-hop tasking, time-delayed decision chains, and mission adaptability even without ground control involvement for graceful handoff and degradation. And, it provides the foundation for local, decentralized deconfliction and coordination among devices in increasingly congested domains.

Altiro is not a replacement for existing collaborative autonomy products; it is additional future-proofing for increased scale, communications degradation, regulations, operational constraints, customer expectations, and competition in the marketplace and on the battlefield.

TRL: 5
Altiro by Cachai is a working MVP ready for proof-of-concept integration with existing autonomy stacks. We seek design partners with input on various undefined configurations and relevant use case data that we can use to test and refine the end product for off-the-shelf licensing sales.

Core Team

• Emma Bates, Founder & CEO – Emma founded Cachai to address a critical capabilities gap she observed over an 8-year career in military strategy & technological modernization. Her government experience includes time at DIU, Army Futures Command, and CSIS. She holds an M.A. with Honors from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a B.A. from Wellesley College.
• Jesse Bates, Co-Founder & CTO – Jesse, co-inventor of Cachai’s IP, has over 5 years of experience at the cutting edge of distributed systems and network innovation at Data Vortex, where he led their Consensus solution initiative and built specialized systems for government and enterprise clients. He is a repeat founder and recently sold his blockchain mining hardware startup.
• Ryan Quick, Distinguished Development Engineer – Ryan is a co-inventor of Cachai’s key technologies and a global leader in high-performance computing, middleware, and distributed systems. He is the founder of Trilix and Providentia Worldwide, and a certified FIPS / PCI-DSS / ISO-27000 auditor. Ryan led PayPal and eBay’s Advanced Technologies Group for a decade, and brings over 30 years of experience building cutting-edge systems for large enterprises and sensitive federal customers.

Sarah Laughlin, VP of Operations – Sarah brings over 15 years of experience spanning legal, finance, marketing, business operations, and venture fundraising. She joined Cachai from the quantum computing sector and is a repeat founder with a successful 2021 exit. She holds an M.B.A. from the University of Denver and a B.A. from the University of Colorado.

More Resources

• Cachai Website
• Cachai LinkedIn