Page 25 - Australian Defence Magazine November 2019

Attendees of Army Innovation Day 2019 observe advanced robotics and other innovative products.
network assurance
PAST AID WINNERS NOW IN SERVICE
KATHERINE ZIESING | CANBERRA
AID gives industry a clear path into service with Army or Special Forces. A Defence spokesperson confirmed that the following technologies from past AIDs are now in the hands of users, having transitioned from demonstra- tion into Army. These programs are a blend of projects under an established Integrated Investment Program proj- ects or stand-alone Minors project.
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• Black Hornet (unmanned aerial system supplied by FLIR) – intro- duced into service in 2018
• Wasp (unmanned aerial system supplied by Aerovironment) – in- troduced into service in 2017
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• Targets and Ranges (combined arms and field targets supplied by Australian Target Systems) – in- troduced into service in 2019
• Robotic Moving Targets (supplied by Marathon Targets) – intro- duced into service in 2018
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• Raider Targets (armour vehicle targets supplied by Deakin Uni- versity) – introduced into service in 2019
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• Range Visualisation Tool (mod- ernising and improving land range safety, supplied by SAF Foresight) – introduced into service in 2019
Defendtex, Penten, Advanced Design Technology, Net Consulting Australia, Ad- vanced Navigation, Agent Oriented Soft- ware, SRC Australia alongside the CDIC, Army History Unit, DST Group and Ar- my’s Future Land Warfare Centre.
From self-healing networks that fre- quency hop without a user realising to cyber security approaches that focus on secure mobility, the technology on show covered a range of approaches to net- work assurance.
Past AID ‘winners’ SYPAQ and Defend- Tex were also on hand with some of their previous technologies that are progressing through trial phases with Army. On show last year, SYPAQ’s the Precision Payload Delivery System (PPDS) has evolved thanks
to a tight design/test/design/test frame- work with Army.
“We’re really looking forward to the next round of trials,” SYPAQ CEO Amanda Holt said to ADM. “Although it is card- board, it’s proven to be much more resilient than we thought and can be reused multiple times on round trips.”
DefendTex’s Drone 40 was also on dis- play, a technology that has been going through the AID/Innovation Hub pro- cess with the company winning multiple Innovation Hub contracts to progress its technologies. Senior Defence sources are impressed with the utility of the product that has a more than odds on chance of see- ing service with the Australian Army in the near future.
DEFENCE BUSINESS
AID 2019
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