Defence awards five companies grants of $12 million.

Defence industry minister, Steve Ciobo has announced five companies will share grants of $12 million to develop innovative technologies.

The grants, by the Defence Innovation Hub, will further develop their innovative technologies to support the Australian Defence Force (ADF).

Sentient Vision Systems, a small Australian computer vision company, has been awarded a $5.5 million contract to explore the development of a land-based Visual Detection and Ranging (ViDAR) system.

This utilises electro-optics with a new infra-red capability for low light and night time functionality.

Sentient’s existing ViDAR product ViDAR is an airborne wide area maritime search system that autonomously detects and images objects on the ocean surface.

Minister Cibo said in a statement: “If successful this technology will offer wide-area detection, tracking and classification capability that can be deployed on both manned and unmanned platforms.”

The innovation hub also signed a $3.2 million contract with Thomas Global to develop a next generation, high definition, colour, digital biocular image control unit for use in armoured vehicles.

Thomas is the country’s only manufacturer of LED screens.

Pctuure: Sentient Vision Systems:/VIDAR mounted on a UAV.

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