Silvus rolls out new Android-based network management software

A rendering of Silvus Technologies' Streamscape Android Tactical Awareness Kit (ATAK) software plugin. (Silvus Technologies )

Silvus Technologies is rolling out a new, mobile variant of its StreamScape graphical user interface (GUI), specifically designed for use on the US armed forces' Android Team Awareness Kit (ATAK).

“We have our StreamScape GUI, and it's kind of evolved over the years,”, said Silvus Technologies' Senior Product Manager Mostafa Ibrahim.

The StreamScape GUI is the company's flagship network management software, embedded into its family of mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) tactical radios. Operated from a laptop, the StreamScape GUI can manage hundreds of individual MANET nodes from one end user device.

“A pain point we had, particularly for dismounted users, is trying to use [the GUI on] your smartphone or your tablet,” Ibrahim told Janes during a 9 May interview. “Pulling up the web browser, putting in the IP address and pulling up StreamScape, wasn't necessarily the most intuitive experience”, he explained.

Scaling issues, such as the text box designed for the laptop-based GUI “taking up the whole page” on a mobile device, were also an example of several technology hurdles programme officials were facing to adapt StreamScape for mobile end users.

As a result, Silvus remodelled the StreamScape GUI for mobile use, with the effort eventually maturing into the ATAK plugin variant of the GUI. “We picked up the idea of kind of integrating with ATAK as a way to put the [GUI] into something that, you know, the majority of the military world, at least those in the US, are familiar with,” Ibrahim said.