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Promising partnerships to enhance autonomous capabilities

4 July 2016
News
(L-R) Brendan Williams (Boeing/Insitu Pacific), Hasan Acar (AOS), Damien O’Brien (Insitu Pacific), Chatura Nagahawatte (DST), Andrew Lucas (AOS), Andrew Duggan (Insitu Pacific), Simon Ng (DST) during DST Partnerships Week in Melbourne.
(L-R) Brendan Williams (Boeing/Insitu Pacific), Hasan Acar (AOS), Damien O’Brien (Insitu Pacific), Chatura Nagahawatte (DST), Andrew Lucas (AOS), Andrew Duggan (Insitu Pacific), Simon Ng (DST) during DST Partnerships Week in Melbourne.

DST Group is partnering with industry and academia to develop a prototype robotic teaming system capable of providing autonomous perimeter and base protection capabilities for Defence.

The system is an extension of Agent Oriented Software (AOS) Group’s intelligent Watchdog (iWD) concept. It brings together AOS’ intelligent agent expertise, Insitu’s platform technologies, Deakin University’s expertise in intelligent systems and DST’s knowledge of human-machine teaming. The cooperative effort will enable a team of unmanned air and ground vehicles and unattended ground sensors to work in concert to detect and provide Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) response to intruders in environments typical of air fields, forward operating bases and ports.

Defence scientist Simon Ng and his team are working with each of these partners to create a capability that will significantly enhance Defence operations. The system also has broader relevance in mining, emergency management and agriculture.

 “The capability will be demonstrated to key Navy and Air Force stakeholders in mid-2016,” Ng explains.  

It will also form part of DST’s contribution under its Trusted Autonomy Strategic Research Initiative to the Autonomy Strategic Challenge trials being held in November 2018 by The Technical Cooperation Program (TTCP). Lessons learned from implementing this system will inform other DST research into unmanned systems for supporting ISR in complex urban environments.

“Plans are in place to continue development of key underlying technologies inherent in this system as part of DST’s strategy to facilitate the transition of autonomous technologies into Defence capability.”

Simon and his team demonstrated some of these capabilities to Defence, industry, academia and the media during DST’s Partnerships Week earlier this month.