Artificial intelligence is where our natural talents lie – The Australian Financial Review

BAE Systems Australia is also providing the unmanned flight vehicle management component of Boeing Australias Loyal Wingman Advanced Development Program that is being developed with the RAAF and DST Group.

In a three-decade R&D program, BAE Systems Australia worked with the University of Sydneys Australian Centre for Field Robotics during the 1990s to develop robotics and autonomous control technologies, says Mr Yelland.

It explored GPS-free navigation and decentralised data fusion technologies for swarms of unmanned vehicles, much of which was subsequently adopted by mining giant Rio Tinto for use on remote mine sites in Australia.

Rheinmetall Mission Master operating autonomously as a battlefield ambulance carrying two casualties.

Now, as the industry lead for land autonomy in Defences new, Brisbane-based Trusted Autonomous Systems CRC, BAE Systems Australia is working with the Australian Army and DSTs Land Division to develop a technology road map to tackle this most challenging of operational environments.

Last year it successfully demonstrated autonomously controlled M113 armoured personnel carriers.

Rheinmetall Defence Australia isnt part of this CRC but its German parent has been researching autonomous vehicles for two decades.

The Australian Armys new Boxer 8x8 combat reconnaissance vehicles will be manufactured at the companys new Military Vehicle Centre of Excellence (MILVEHCOE) at Redbank, Queensland.

Having the hardware moving safely alongside and amongst an infantry combat team as a member of the team, that is one of the key differentiators were working on here.

Gary Stewart, Rheinmetall Defence Australia MD

There, Rheinmetall Defence Australia engineers are leading 60 researchers across Australia in a two-year, $12 million robotics and autonomy R&D program in partnership with DST, CSIROs Data61, QUT and RMIT as well as with German and Canadian researchers.

When we stood up the R&D program we wanted to make sure we had the best and brightest, Gary Stewart, managing director of Rheinmetall Defence Australia, told The Australian Financial Review.

RMIT is one of the worlds leading video game development hubs and so an expert in machine learning; QUT has world-leading expertise in artificial vision how robots interpret the world around them; and CSIROs Data61 is a global leader in Artificial Intelligence.

The company already has two Canadian wheeled Mission Master robotic vehicles in-country and will receive a lightweight German Wiesel Wingman tracked armoured vehicle later this year.

The aim, says Mr Stewart, is to start demonstrating genuinely transformational autonomous vehicle technologies to the Australian Army in 2020, COVID-19 permitting.

The vehicle wont be controlled by a member of the infantry team its supporting it will be completely autonomous.

The Nulka missile decoy system at work.

Having the hardware moving safely alongside and amongst an infantry combat team as a member of the team, that is one of the key differentiators were working on here, he said.

This culminates in the vehicle driving and making its own decisions, interpreting the infantry hand signals, watching how the soldiers move and then determining the appropriate way it should behave as a member of that team.

Rheinmetall Defence Australias R&D is all company funded, says Mr Stewart. But we are looking for co-investment opportunities.

For defence giant Lockheed Martin Australia, R&D is its lifeblood, according to Dr Tony Lindsay, Director of the companys Melbourne-based STELaRLab.

The company is now investing locally in a portfolio of advanced technologies, including quantum science, hypersonics, space systems and AI.

It is also the Combat Systems Integrator (CSI) for the Navys new Attack-class submarines and this month announced eight contracts worth a combined $600,000 with the Universities of Adelaide, South Australia, Tasmania and Melbourne and three local high-technology firms to prepare white papers on the development of novel and emerging combat system technologies.

This follows $900,000-worth of similar contracts awarded last year and funded under its submarine contract.

Lockheed Martin is working with the white paper authors on longer-term research based on these. Topics include underwater communications, dynamic computing resource allocation, and AI-enabled novel operational concepts associated with the use of uninhabited and autonomous systems by a submarine.

The main focus of Lockheed Martin Australias Australian industrial participation program is R&D and it has funded some 32 export-focused R&D projects since 2012, the company says.

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Artificial intelligence is where our natural talents lie - The Australian Financial Review