THIS IS Artificial Intelligence

On Tuesday 12 October, the Minister for Defence Industry, Melissa Price announced the Defence Innovation Hub will be investing $28m in Australian industry. Of the nine contracts being funded, Thales Australia received $3.8m to develop our sovereign Blue Sentry autonomous system.

The last few decades have seen phenomenal advancements in military capabilities. Intelligence-gathering that could take weeks can be done in seconds. The precision of strategic missiles is now available in single munitions. Tech that once took a convoy to move is now on a tablet in a soldier’s pouch. To stay as close as possible to the armed forces we serve, we at Thales need to know how technology fits with the OODA loop – the observe–orient–decide–act cycle.

Thales is unveiling the TSA6000, the first IFF interrogator to use flat fixed-array active antenna technology. This new solution, unique in the world, provides 360° coverage around the vessel, with no trade-off in range capabilities, and an unprecedented and extremely fast identification capability.

Unmanned platforms add significant capability to existing maritime assets by delivering persistent surveillance over vast areas of land and sea and over significantly long periods of time – more so than any manned platform.