In this video from Doodle Labs, George Matus, founder of Teal Drones and CTO of Red Cat Holdings, discusses the Black Widow, the new flagship drone from Teal Drones and Red Cat, which leverages Doodle Labs’ Mesh Rider Radios for resilient connectivity and anti-jamming performance on the battlefield.
Doodle Labs’ Mesh Rider Radios were selected as the communications backbone for Teal’s Black Widow drone, part of the U.S. Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance (SRR) Tranche 2 initiative.
The SRR program supports the Army’s modernization strategy by providing Brigade Combat Teams with rapidly deployable, cost-effective drones capable of operating in GPS-denied and electronically contested environments.
Tranche 2 represents the next phase of the SRR program, focused on scaling production and deploying drones to operational units. Candidate systems were evaluated for environmental resilience, cybersecurity, Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) efficiency, and anti-jamming capabilities.
The Army tested multiple platforms, including Teal’s Black Widow and Skydio X2D. While both performed strongly, the Black Widow met all Army requirements, particularly excelling in contested RF environments and offering a modular design for future capabilities.
Advanced Capabilities & Future Outlook
Doodle Labs’ Mesh Rider Radios played a key role in Teal’s success. Featuring proprietary Sense Technology, these radios provide low detectability, anti-jamming capabilities, dual-band operation, and adaptive modulation, enabling long-range, low-latency HD video and telemetry even Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS).
The radios are compact, MIL-STD compliant, SWaP-optimized for Group 1 drones, NDAA-compliant, and listed on the Blue UAS Cleared List.
Winning the SRR Tranche 2 contract positions Teal for multi-year, production-scale deployment. Thousands of systems equipped with Doodle Labs’ communications technology are expected to be fielded across Brigade Combat Teams over the next five years.
The Teal Black Widow, equipped with Doodle Labs’ Mesh Rider Radio, has demonstrated its capabilities in real-world conflict zones. Key highlights include: high-fidelity video streaming over 5 km on defense frequency bands; resilience in GPS-denied and electronically contested (EW-active) environments; superior functionality compared to legacy Microhard radios; and robust integration support with full alignment to Teal’s SDK.
Beyond a single program, the partnership supports the development of the ARACHNID drone family and cross-platform communications. Standardizing on Doodle Labs’ system establishes a foundation for broader interoperability across future drone platforms.
This collaboration delivers advanced, secure, and resilient datalinks, enabling Teal to meet the Army’s rigorous operational requirements and laying the groundwork for a larger, connected drone ecosystem built on Doodle Labs’ communications architecture.
Teal and Doodle Labs will continue to advance tactical drone capabilities with enhanced spectral agility, expanded electronic warfare testing, and future-proofed communications for multi-domain operations.
