In early February 2021, discussion had been that IST would merge with Two Six Technologies: a high-growth company providing cybersecurity and advanced technology solutions for national security customers. In fact, shortly afterit was announced that US multinational private equity firm The Carlyle Group had acquired both government IT consulting businesses: IST Research and Two Six Labs. Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed. With both smaller firms based in Virginia, the two will merge to form Two Six Technologies offering technology and cybersecurity services to the intelligence community, Department of Defense, and other US national security customers. Fairly active in the SBIR mission agency space, IST Research had been established to explore the possibilities created by the development of technology within new/challenging operational environments. "Pulse" for example is a rapidly configurable two-way information sharing architecture and analysis platform designed to help teams in developing areas of the world work with local populations to exchange valuable information. IST Research has designed and developed a proof-of-concept solution that provides remote sensing, along with command & control, of the power management system of the E2COP. The solution allows human-in-the-loop control through a simple web interface that will allow COP leadership to monitor and control the entire camp's power and environmental systems via a wirelessly connected tablet or pc. To the greatest extent possible, IST Research utilizes open-source technology and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components for lower cost and rapid development. HDT is well known for its advanced line of expeditionary shelter systems currently used by the military, such as the Base-X and AirBeam Shelter systems. As these shelters are typically used in austere and extreme environments, energy efficiency is a critical component of the full shelter system. As such, HDT currently employs a multitude of energy efficient products such as Balance of Systems (BoS) units, Radiant Barrier Blankets, Solar Shade Flys and Self-Powered Heaters along with solar and wind power generation to augment traditional generators to provide the most power efficient shelters available without compromising comfort or security. The technology baseline (ARGOS) can easily be prototyped and modified for integration into the E2COP, or any other system. The system is based on a 32-bit microcontroller platform that allows for the collection of sensor data, the display of current lighting and temperature conditions, and control of lighting conditions at the system nodes or shelters. Multiple sensor collection units and connected through power line communication links to an aggregator that forwards sensor data and commands back and forth between the base station, which consists of a low power single board computer. This single board computer is an embedded Linux platform running web-services and database applications that warehouse and displays requested data about each node in addition to providing remote command & control of each node.
