The federal government will invest over $100 million to buy new lethal and non-lethal drones from a German and an Australian manufacturer. The acquisition of two small uncrewed aerial systems (SUAS) will bolster the ADF’s ability to carry out surveillance and reconnaissance and augments the ADF’s existing stock of drones. The Quantum-Systems Vector 2-in-1 and…
Today in our editorial series – Towards 3% R&D – Turbocharging Australia’s Innovation Effort – Saeid Nahavandi looks at the role robotic and autonomous systems can play in defence innovation and operations. In line with the complexities of modern warfare, the integration of advanced robotic and autonomous systems (RASs), artificial intelligence (AI), and human-machine collaborative…
Defence Minister Richard Marles has outlined an ambitious Integrated Investment Program which incudes a jump in defence spending to the equivalent of 2.4 percent of GDP by 2033-34, a rise of a massive 0.3 percent on earlier projections. The programme, a response to the 2024 National Defence Strategy, involves a complete rebuild of Defence’s capability…
A Hydrus autonomous underwater vehicle made by Advanced Navigation was recently sent on a mission to the Indian Ocean’s Rottnest ship graveyard, sharing data with the Western Australian Museum and Curtin University to rebuild a model of a shipwreck dating back over a century. In a statement from the company this week, it said the…
The Australian Army has joined allies and partners in Project Convergence which is testing and developing networks, robotic and autonomous systems, air defence and strike related systems. Project Convergence is a US-led campaign of learning through experimentation. The project was designed to aggressively advance and integrate technology across all warfighting domains, to overmatch an adversary…
BAE Systems Australia and Trusted Autonomous Systems (TAS) have completed a four-year research and demonstration programme developing an advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) system that could be used in uncrewed ground vehicles (UGV). The companies developed the TAGVIEW (Trusted Autonomous Ground Vehicles in Electronic Warfare) system which allows multiple UGVs to operate simultaneously to carry out…
Not every mechatronics engineering student gets to have a billion-dollar idea. Xavier Orr did. It was the second-half of the 2000s, before the explosion in machine learning led by AlexNet and Google Brain. Rather than image classification, Orr was studying a neural network alternative to the Kalman filter. Kalman is an algorithmic technique used since the…
By Adam Bartley, RMIT University and Matthew Warren, RMIT University A 12-tonne fishing boat weighs anchor three kilometres off the port of Adelaide. A small crew huddles over a miniature submarine, activates the controls, primes the explosives, and releases it into the water. The underwater drone uses sensors and sonar to navigate towards its pre-programmed…
By Peter Layton, Griffith University The United States military plans to start using thousands of autonomous weapons systems in the next two years in a bid to counter China’s growing power, US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks announced in a speech on Monday. The so-called Replicator initiative aims to work with defence and other…
Wirra Wirra in US export breakthrough McLaren Vale, South Australia winery, Wirra Wirra, has secured a landmark, exclusive deal with the world’s largest family-owned wine company, E. & J. Gallo Winery (Gallo) to export its range of wines across all 50 US states. Under the agreement, Wirra Wirra will be Gallo’s exclusive McLaren Vale supplier,…
