Defence awards $1.7 million for two new AI projects

The department of defence announced on Monday that it has signed new contracts with the University of South Australia and Deakin University, cumulatively worth $1.746 million, for R&D focussed on using artificial intelligence to process noisy and dynamic data into information.

The funding is through the Next Generation Technologies Fund (NGTF) and the projects are part of the Defence Artificial Intelligence Research Network (DAIRNet) Phase II call out.

Chief Defence Scientist Professor Tanya Monro said the two-year projects aimed to rapidly develop prototypes for defence.

“Robotics, autonomous systems and artificial intelligence are a group of technologies that are a Defence Sovereign Industrial Capability Priority,” Munro said in a statement.

“The DAIRNet Phase II call out sought innovative proposals for prototypes that will help warfighters achieve superior decision making, and ultimately enhance Defence capability.”

The UniSA project will develop a statistical machine learning algorithm from data produced via devices such as smart watches to detect early signs of infection in a person. 

The project by Deakin’s Applied Artificial Intelligence Institute will apply “next generation machine learning to develop models that can process noisy and dynamic data that is multi-source, multi-modal, irregularly timed and that spans a prolonged period.”

Picture: credit Defence Innovation Hub