$12million grants to pursue innovative concepts

Five Australian businesses have been awarded contracts with a combined value of more than $12 million to further develop their innovative technologies to support the ADF.

FILE PHOTO: OCIUS Bluebottle, Sydney Harbour (May, 2015)

Minister for Defence Industry Steven Ciobo said the latest tranche of investments, funded through the Defence Innovation Hub, has the potential to deliver leading-edge capability for Defence.

“As part of this investment, Sentient Vision Systems, a small Australian computer vision technology company, has been awarded a $5.5 million contract to explore the development of a land Visual Detection and Ranging (VIDAR) system that uses electro-optics with a new infra-red capability for low light and night-time functionality,” Minister Ciobo said.

“If successful this technology will offer wide-area detection, tracking and classification capability that could be deployed on both manned and unmanned platforms.

“The Defence Innovation Hub also signed a $3.2 million contract with Thomas Global to explore development of a next-generation, high-definition, colour, digital binocular image control unit for use in armoured vehicles.”

Defence Innovation Hub accepts proposals on innovations at all stages, from early stage concept exploration and technology demonstration through to advanced prototypes for integration, test and evaluation.

Industry and research organisations are encouraged to submit their innovation proposals through the Defence Innovation Portal.

 

Contracts announced today under the Defence Innovation Hub

Organisation	Contract Value	Description of innovation
Sentient Vision Systems Pty Ltd	$5.5 million	To develop a VIDAR system offering wide-area detection, tracking and classification capability that can be deployed on both manned and unmanned platforms.
Thomas Global	$3.2 million	To explore development of a next generation, high definition, colour, digital binocular image control unit for armoured vehicle applications.
Penten	$2 million	The new technology will create decoy radio emissions that are designed to confuse adversaries as to the true location of Army units.
Ocius	$1.7 million	To determine the viability of an intelligent command and control network of persistent unmanned surface vessels – with the potential to improve Defence maritime services, such as maritime patrol, mine clearance, environmental monitoring, and search-and-rescue operations.
Amatek Design	$288,000	To further develop the concept for a heavy lifter quad-copter drone for Army combat service support.  If successful, this capability could be used to supplement or replace existing modes of transport, including off-road vehicles, trucks and helicopters.

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