Minister for Defence Industry Melissa Price has this morning made two announcements on higher research into future ADF capabilities.
First, a consortium of four Australian universities will receive $3 million to work with their American counterparts on developing the next-generation of autonomous vehicles.
“Autonomous vehicles help keep troops a safe distance from harm and present solutions to a range of problems faced by our military personnel in the field,” Minister Price said.
The University of Melbourne, Macquarie University, UNSW and Queensland University of Technology, will join forces with Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They will explore whether the way in which living creatures receive, process and react to environmental and contextual information can be applied to robots to improve their perception, navigation and spatial awareness.
“This project is aimed at developing a truly autonomous vehicle capable of learning, adapting to unexpected situations and pursuing complex goals in dynamic and challenging environments,” Minister Price said.
“It is a tremendous opportunity for our scientists to collaborate with their counterparts in the US on research that is vital for the future defence and security of Australia.”
The funding was awarded under the AUSMURI program, a sister program to the US multidisciplinary university research initiative (MURI). AUSMURI supports Australian universities which are part of successful bids in the US MURI process.
Designed to encourage collaboration between Australian universities and their US counterparts, AUSMURI provides funding of up to $1 million per year for three years, supporting research in high priority areas for Defence.
“In addition to providing critical Defence capability, the AUSMURI program will help to grow local skills and expertise in key areas,” Minister Price said.
A total of $25 million from the Next Generation Technologies Fund will be invested in the AUSMURI program over the next nine years.
Human Performance Research
Second, eight Australian universities will conduct additional research into human performance aimed at enhancing warfighter capability.
Research studies will be carried out through the Human Performance Research network (HPRnet), managed by Defence Science and Technology under the $730 million Next Generation Technologies Fund.
“The physical and cognitive performance and resilience of the warfighter is critical to ADF capability, and continuing research is the building block for achieving high levels of performance,” Minister Price said.
“These new four-year studies will enable HPRnet to benefit warfighters in all three services."
Defence received 116 university research proposals to its open call in March this year. Nine studies were selected, ranging from cognitive augmentation, nutrition and gut health to the use of augmented reality, team training and resilience.
The successful universities are Flinders University, La Trobe University, Macquarie University, UNSW, University of Queensland, Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria University and Western Sydney University.
A tenth study by Victoria University and The University of Melbourne on Assistive Technologies, to be funded by Diggerworks, was selected from fifteen applications, following a separate HPRnet open call.
This brings the total number of Australian universities engaged in the HPRnet projects to fourteen.
“I congratulate the successful universities and look forward to the results of their research into enhancing human performance,” Minister Price said.