Application Portfolio · 2026

Cyber-physical systems for the contested edge.

Northstar Applied Research is a Small Business Enterprise developing dual-use sensing, intelligence, and verification platforms for the Department of Defense, federal civil agencies, and election-integrity partners. Three applications. One disciplined engineering team.

Explore the Portfolio Contact Leadership
CAGE
19JC2
UEI
V3Q3UE8LVU56
NAICS
541715 / 541330 / 541511
Designation
Small Business Enterprise
Pathways
SBIR · STTR · BAA · CSO

— 01 / About

An applied-research firm built around fielded capability.

Headquartered in New Jersey with satellite offices in Philadelphia and New York City, Northstar Applied Research designs, prototypes, and productionizes software and cyber-physical systems for defense and dual-use missions. Our subsidiary, Davis & Williams LLC, applies the same engineering discipline to civic-integrity and field-operations technology.

Three production-track applications anchor the portfolio. Each addresses a discrete operational gap — passive C-UAS detection, federated open-source intelligence fusion, and verifiable petition signatures — and each is engineered against federal compliance, security, and acquisition standards.

Northstar is positioned across multiple active solicitations including USSOCOM AURORA, AFWERX 26.1 Open Topic, and DoD SBIR 26.BZ. Our flagship platform Atmos-Clear is at TRL 4 (Lab/Brassboard Prototype), with a clear roadmap through TRL 6 demonstration.

3
Active applications
TRL 4
Atmos-Clear maturity
$550K+
SBIR pipeline pursued
0 EM
Active emissions, by design

— 02 / Portfolio

Three applications. One engineering doctrine.

Each platform is purpose-built for a high-consequence environment: defense, intelligence, or election integrity. All share the same operating principles — auditable, secure, edge-capable, and engineered to federal standards.

01 / FLAGSHIP TRL 4 · Brassboard

Atmos-Clear

Passive Edge AI for C-UAS Domain Awareness & Environmental Monitoring

Northstar's flagship dual-use cyber-physical edge sensor node. Atmos-Clear integrates passive acoustic micro-arrays, software-defined radio, NASA Core Flight System (cFS), and on-device NVIDIA Jetson AI inferencing into a hardened low-SWaP platform — detecting, classifying, and tracking unmanned aerial systems with zero active electromagnetic emissions. A co-located environmental sensor array delivers hyper-local air-quality data as a simultaneous mission.

  • Passive MEMS acoustic array — bearing estimation & AI classification of UAS signatures
  • Wideband SDR front-end for passive RF spectrum monitoring (zero EM emissions)
  • NASA cFS embedded mission management — open-architecture, fault-tolerant, DoD-proven
  • NVIDIA Jetson on-device inferencing — cloud-independent, contested-environment ready
  • Integrated particulate, gas, and atmospheric sensing for hyper-local air quality
  • Roadmap: TRL 5 via SBIR Phase I/II → TRL 6 demonstration under AFWERX or DIU
C-UAS SIGINT Edge AI NASA cFS NVIDIA Jetson SDR Low-SWaP SBIR Phase I/II
02 / INTELLIGENCE In Development

OSINTBroker

Federated Open-Source Intelligence Fusion Platform

OSINTBroker is a multi-source intelligence integration platform that unifies geospatial, atmospheric, orbital, and observational data into a single analyst-grade workspace. The platform brokers and harmonizes feeds from NASA, Palantir, OpenSky Network, CelesTrak, and USGS — exposing them through a common query layer, common spatial reference, and common timeline so that signal correlations across domains can be surfaced in seconds rather than days.

  • NASA — Earth observation, atmospheric composition, & mission telemetry feeds
  • Palantir — Foundry / Gotham ontology integration for entity resolution & analyst workflow
  • OpenSky Network — Real-time ADS-B air traffic data for global flight pattern analysis
  • CelesTrak — Satellite catalog & orbital-element ingestion for space domain awareness
  • USGS — Seismic, hydrologic, and geospatial reference layers for terrestrial context
  • Unified query layer, common temporal/spatial reference, exportable analyst products
OSINT GEOINT Space Domain Awareness Data Fusion Analyst Workspace Federated APIs
03 / CIVIC INTEGRITY In Development

VerifyNow

AI-Powered Petition Signature Verification

VerifyNow is a signature-verification application built for petition circulators, campaign committees, ballot-access teams, and election integrity programs. Operators upload a photographed petition page; an LLM-driven vision agent extracts each signature and cross-references it against a loaded voter-file image set, returning per-line match confidence, flagged anomalies, and an exportable audit trail. Operated through Northstar's subsidiary, Davis & Williams LLC.

  • Photo-upload workflow — capture petition pages via mobile or desktop, no transcription
  • Trained vision LLM agent — extracts handwritten signatures & metadata per line
  • Voter-file image scanning — agent compares handwriting against uploaded voter records
  • Per-line match confidence scoring with anomaly flags (mismatch, duplicate, illegible)
  • Audit-trail export for legal challenges & ballot-access submissions
  • Operator workflow built on Davis & Williams' multi-state field operations experience
Election Integrity Computer Vision LLM Agent Handwriting Match Ballot Access Davis & Williams

— 03 / Leadership

Operators, engineers, and communicators.

Northstar's leadership team combines defense software engineering at scale, U.S. Army communications discipline, and 10+ years of multi-state program execution. Two members hold federal credentials directly relevant to DoD contracting.

Ryan Davis

Founder & Strategic Program Executive

Founder of Northstar Applied Research and Principal Investigator for Atmos-Clear. A defense technology entrepreneur with 10+ years of complex program management, multi-state operations, and data-driven leadership. Architects company strategy across SBIR program navigation, federal acquisition, intelligence frameworks, and edge AI sensing systems. Also leads Davis & Williams LLC field operations across PA, GA, NY, and CO.

  • ClearanceDoD Certified Counterintelligence
  • EducationBS Marketing, Fairleigh Dickinson · US Government Cert., Harvard · PM, Morgan State
  • FocusSBIR/STTR strategy, DoD acquisition, OSINT/GEOINT, EM operations
  • BasedNew Jersey · Satellite offices in Philadelphia & NYC

Nathan E. Antwi

Lead Software Engineer

Principal technical architect for Atmos-Clear. Defense software engineer with active Secret clearance and demonstrated experience building and securing mission-critical software for the U.S. Navy's Aegis Combat System at Lockheed Martin. Directs the embedded software stack, DevSecOps practices, and SBIR Phase I technical-volume development across Northstar's engineering program.

  • ClearanceSecret (Active, June 2023 – Present)
  • EducationMSE Systems Engineering, Rowan (2027) · BA Computer Science, Rutgers
  • StackJava, C++, Python · NVIDIA Jetson · NASA cFS · MBSE · Fortify/Coverity
  • PriorInfrastructure Team Lead, Lockheed Martin — Aegis Combat System

Timothy Turane

Strategic Operations Director

Strategic operations director and government-affairs professional with 20+ years across U.S. Army service, state and municipal government communications, and federal grant management. Directs organizational strategy, partner relations, and external communications for Northstar — bringing crisis-communications discipline and stakeholder-engagement capability tuned to the DoD contracting environment.

  • ServiceStaff Sergeant, NY Army National Guard (13 yrs) · Army Instructor Certified
  • EducationMA Strategic Communications, U. of Delaware · BS PR, St. John's
  • CertsSix Sigma · Crisis Mgmt · Engineering PM (Rice) · Strategic Mgmt
  • Influence$1.5M+ in federal/state grant funding directly relationship-managed

— 04 / Engage

Build with us. Field with us.

Northstar Applied Research engages with DoD program offices, federal civil agencies, prime integrators, and acquisition teams across SBIR/STTR, BAA, and CSO pathways. For partnership, demonstrations, capability statements, or solicitation collaboration, please reach out directly.

Contact Founder
Founder
[email protected]
Phone
(202) 930-8271
Web
www.northstarappliedresearch.com
CAGE
19JC2
UEI
V3Q3UE8LVU56
HQ
New Jersey, USA
Offices
Philadelphia, PA · New York, NY