A project led by Adelaide based defence software firm, Acacia Systems, has been selected to receive a $1.6 million dollar funding boost under the inaugural round of the Defence Innovation Partnership’s Activator Fund.

The ‘Enhancing the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) Undersea Surveillance Minimum Viable Capability’ Project aims to advance novel approaches to increase the accuracy, range, tracking and localisation of undersea threats.

The Activator Fund was established to enable South Australia to participate in larger-scale innovation activities within the defence industry and supports the rapid translation of innovative technology into Defence capability.

Acacia System’s Chief Executive Officer, Horden Wiltshire, talks to the collaborative approach and benefits of the project.

“Led by Acacia, the program will bring together world leading researchers from the University of Adelaide, University of South Australia and Curtin University, with support from the Defence Science and Technology group.

“It will apply the latest research in the areas of multi-object tracking, reinforcement learning and large language models to improve RAN’s persistent undersea surveillance capability,” Mr Wiltshire said.

The first Activator project theme ‘Remote Undersea Surveillance Data Processing, Analysis and Networking’ was announced in June 2023 with subsequent project themes to be announced in future.

Refer to the media release for further information.

Image: Horden Wiltshire, CEO Acacia Systems, Mick Toohey, Strategic Adviser – Land Acacia Systems and Ted Huber, Founder and Chairman Acacia Systems at the recent Indo-Pacific Maritime Exposition