Australia needs to innovate faster than ever before to develop the defence capabilities required to counter the new strategic risks and challenges that present to the nation.
Australia is under pressure to do more with less, and to deploy outcomes faster to address capability gaps, a more competitive and contested Indo-Pacific region, and to support civilian emergency services during natural disasters.
Karen Trezise, Babcock Australasia’s Chief Technologist says Australia needs to adopt an approach to innovation that’s collaborative, diverse, inclusive, agile, and above all, rapid.
“The two biggest hurdles to Defence taking up new technology are development costs and deployment timeframes,” she said.
Trezise joined Babcock in March 2022 to spearhead the Defence Prime’s commitment to innovative research developments and technologies.
She said Australia can lower the cost of research by adopting a ‘learn to fail, fail fast, and fail forward’ approach to innovation.
“As defence engineers, we can get too focussed on achieving zero risk before we commit to testing, which makes it easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. We need to be prepared to act quickly - always keeping our eyes on the horizon for those game changing technologies and then leverage these technologies or combinations of technologies for better Defence outcomes.”
Trezise said lowering development timeframes meant involving the end users and various SMEs in every step of the innovation process.
“Having our Defence customers involved right from the start is essential; understanding the capability need and hence the innovation problem we are trying to solve, and consistently revisiting the problem statement at every iteration of the design process.
“We need to be continuously scanning and assessing research and technology developments, including those with high Technology Readiness Level (TRL) that can be deployed rapidly or further developed as a first iteration solution. You can then go from a rapid concept assessment into a down select of different technologies based on the timeframe and capability needs.”
She said a growing appreciation of Australia’s strategic challenges, the need to develop sovereign capability, and new strategic alliances had seen a greater commitment from government and Defence to fast track innovation.
“An example of this is the launch and recovery concepts for both autonomous underwater and aerial vehicles being developed for the Australian Navy.
“Typically, what would be a five-to-six-year programme could be reduced to less than two years. Within 18 months, we could go from rapid assessment to design, build, and test of a prototype.
“We also have increased access to Defence personnel and SMEs to help guide and champion innovation, which is really exciting for Australian researchers and innovators that previously would have gone overseas seeking such exciting opportunities.”
She said Babcock has established a centralised technology team to support the ‘need for speed’ that Defence is looking for.
“Speed is down to the priority that's put on it. At Babcock, we've got a dedicated team that enables us to move faster with executive level sponsorship that makes it known that innovation is a priority.
“Having that centralised innovation function allows more efficient development of technology because we can leverage combined expertise across air, land, sea, and in the future, the space domain.”
A current innovation in progress at Babcock is the Submerged Launch Above Water Sensor (SLAWS) project to provide the Collins Class submarine with a covert real-time observation capability without the need to surface, gaining advanced Situational Awareness (SA) as well as providing an Over The Horizon Sensing (OTHS) capability.
“Generating such a solution in rapid time requires Babcock to innovate and push the boundaries of what is possible with current technology, such as overcoming the performance, size and detectability limitations of underwater communications,” said Trezise.
“To do this, we’re bringing the best minds together by leveraging Babcock’s collaborative network with Defence, research organisations, academia, various commercial partners, as well as Babcock’s global connections in the UK, South Africa, and Canada.
“This collaborative model allows us to integrate many systems into a coherent, all-inclusive, and reliable solution that aims to significantly improve the Australian Navy’s vessel detection capabilities.”