Page 18 - Australian Defence Magazine April 2019
P. 18

“It is our combat management system,” James Lawless of Saab said. “Navy doesn’t want a lot of federated systems throughout a ship. Ideally we would have a sensor pay- load directly interfaced into the CMS.”
Could another competitor build that into Saab’s CMS?
“They could, but it’s a higher risk pro- posal and then you’ve got issues around IP and data sharing. So you could, and we will do that with certain bespoke software, but when you talk about actual sensors and in- tegration it would be adding an extra layer in there.”
UAS industry
ADM also spoke to companies respon- sible for manufacturing UAS parts, such as NSW SME Quickstep. The composites manufacturer won the 2018 NSW Defence Industries Exporter of the Year and is in discussions with General Atomics (GA) to participate in Australia’s future Reaper drone program. The company’s ability to of- fer GA a low-cost solution for Reaper, how-
ever, depends on whether GA offers Quickstep a sufficiently high-volume global contract.
“We don’t want it just
for the Australian fleet,”
CEO Mark Burgess
said. “We’d rather have a
smaller work statement
for global supply than a
bigger work statement
just for the Australian
fleet. It’s economies of scale. That would be a sufficiently high volume that there’s a business case to automate parts of the pro- cess. So it very much depends on the state- ment of work that they offer.”
A second SME looking to tap into the burgeoning UAS market is Adelaide-based Praxis Aeronautics, run by founder Cam- eron Donaldson, a former shipwright, and Managing Director Katie Donaldson. The company are unique in their ability to inte- grate solar energy harvesting cells directly into composites used to build UAS and
other unmanned systems – a process re- fined from Cameron’s earlier work building fiberglass boat hulls. The innovation allows for significant weight savings and allows UAS to improve performance by up to a staggering 300 per cent.
“It’s generally two to three times the range,” Cameron said. “A proof of concept achieved 350 per cent of the range in good conditions, but generally we achieve 200 to 300 per cent improvement. That’s not just coming from us, that’s something that [cus- tomers] are finding as well.”
SYPAQ WINS ARMY DEVELOPMENT FUNDING
NIGEL PITTAWAY | AVALON
On the opening trade day of the Avalon 2019, Australian SME SYPAQ announced it had won seed funding to further devel- op its Corvo X Small Unmanned Aerial Systems (SUAS) capa- bility, under Land 129 Phase 4B.
The agreement was signed at the show by SYPAQ CEO Amanda Holt and Head of Land Capability, Army, Major Gen- eral Kath Toohey.
The company was one of three organisations from indus- try and academia to be awarded a concept exploration con- tract via the Defence Innovation Hub Special Notice in April 2018. Corvo X will be further developed in response to Army’s future man-portable SUAS capability and a demonstration to Army is expected to occur in the first half of 2019.
The Corvo Autonomous SUAS system is designed and built in Australia and therefore has the additional benefit of being free of ITAR restrictions. Corvo is actually the name for a range of SYPAQ’s ISR products, which include modular vid- eo processing systems and VS goggles.
“Through a Defence Innovation Hub Special Notice, we have had access to opportunities not typically available to SME businesses, including direct collaboration between innovators and end-users. This has allowed us to continue the development of Corvo X with confidence that we un- derstand the capability needs of Army, both now and into the future,” Holt said. “Army has been a fantastic partner throughout this process, and the result is a system that
pushes the boundaries from a technology and soldier integration perspective.”
MAJGEN Toohey said a previous Land 129/4B contract had been awarded to AeroVironment to deliver the Wasp AE SUAS to Army combat teams, but Army had made a decision to support Austra- lian industry for future acquisition.
“I think this is a really good news story for Aus- tralian defence industry,” MAJGEN Toohey said. “We’re really excited to be able to give SYPAQ some seed funding to further their capability when it comes to drones, to make sure that SYPAQ, and potentially other Australian companies, will be able to compete for Land 129/4B.”
Amanda Holt and MAJGEN Kath Toohey at Avalon signing the agreement.
18 | April 2019 | www.australiandefence.com.au
DEFENCE BUSINESS
AVALON
“We’d rather have a smaller work statement for global supply than a bigger work statement just for the Australian fleet.”
NIGEL PITTAWAY


































































































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