General Dynamics Mission Systems (GDMS) has opened its new office in Canberra, with an eye to future business in a number of Australian defence acquisition programs including Air 6500.
The new office houses the General Dynamics Mediaware business, an Australian technology success story which started out 20 years ago as a video processing technology start-up launched by three CSIRO scientists.
Mediaware managing director Garrick Simeon said they specialised in software for video applications and defence had become their largest market.
He said their software reconfigured video and its metadata to assist in more efficient streaming. That’s especially relevant for video feeds from unmanned aircraft. As a result of spectacular growth in demand for streaming video from unmanned aircraft, the company now does more than 65 per cent of its business in defence.
“We are very good at video exploitation software,” he said.
Mr Simeon said their largest customer was the US government, with contracts amounting to many millions of dollars.
Bob Lennox, GDMS senior vice-president for strategy and customer engagement, said their challenge was to manage large quantities of incoming data and get it to the right place. “In that realm you start thinking about those capabilities that apply to different defence projects. You start thinking about the addition of artificial intelligence, analysis and machine learning to make you better at it,” he said.
This challenge is particularly relevant to the ADF, which is embarking on a series of projects to buy armed tactical UAVs, the Triton high altitude long endurance maritime surveillance UAV, and maritime UAVs for use aboard new warships.
Then there’s Project Air 6500 to develop an integrated air and missile defence system, an ambitious and globally unprecedented plan.
“General Dynamics is working with Australia’s Department of Defence supporting the Commonwealth’s defence modernization plans,” said Chris Marzilli, president of GDMS.
GD Mission Systems produces an air battle management system for the US Marine Corps, which the company is pitching as a possible element of Air 6500.
Mr Lennox said Air 6500 will be a very big project that will require know-how from across the industry.
“The government is looking for a prime system integrator and then there are a number of capabilities that one company is unlikely to be able to do,” he said.