• Spiral Blue, one of the DIH contract winners, is developing space-based computing technology.
Spiral Blue
    Spiral Blue, one of the DIH contract winners, is developing space-based computing technology. Spiral Blue
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The second biggest contract ever awarded by the Defence Innovation Hub is among nine new contracts worth more than $28 million to have been signed with organisations across Australia.

About 84 per cent of Defence Innovation Hub investment has now been with Australian small and medium sized businesses and research organisations.

“I’m delighted to see the Defence Innovation Hub continuing to provide Australian businesses with opportunities that could enhance Defence capability,” Minister for Defence Industry Melissa Price said.

Two of these organisations, BlueZone Group and QinetiQ, were awarded contracts to further develop promising technologies that have previously received funding through the Defence Innovation Hub.

BlueZone Group won a second Defence Innovation Hub contract valued at more than $7 million – the Hub’s second biggest contract to date.

It will be used to continue the development of the Wave Glider Unmanned Surface Vehicle technology.

“BlueZone Group’s technology has the potential to greatly improve the Navy’s situational awareness when operating in marine environments,” Minister Price said.

QinetiQ was awarded a $4.8 million contract to develop an innovative technology that could be used to better regulate air quality in submarines. This system has the potential to offer significant improvements on existing systems by significantly reducing size, weight and power requirements.

“These contracts demonstrate the significant investment the government is making in game-changing maritime technologies for our Navy,” Minister Price said.

Other winners include: Thales Australia for its Blue Sentry autonomous sonar system; Silentium for its space surveillance passive radar technology; Armour Composite Engineering for curved body armour; Defendtex Research Labs for an enhanced drone platform; Mission Systems for mine neutralisation technology; Prism Systems for an integrated capability solution for RAN; and Spiral Blue for a cutting edge satellite imagery processing system.

The Defence Innovation Hub has awarded more than $270 million in innovation contracts since December 2016.

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