The Minister for industry and science Ed Husic announced Advanced Navigation has been awarded $1m under round 15 of the Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) grant initiatives.
The award will accelerate development and production of the company’s breakthrough Light Detection, Altimetry and Velocimetry (LiDAV) technology for Earth applications.
Currently, LiDAV is supporting NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program to improve the safety and reliability of autonomous landing manoeuvres on the lunar surface.
The Earth–solution of LiDAV will solve complex autonomy challenges across aerospace, automotive, weather, as well as railways and logistics.
This includes:
- Aiding aircraft during take off and landing, particularly in difficult conditions
- Measuring weather patterns far more accurately to significantly improve weather detection and forecasting
- Guiding passenger drones and autonomous vehicles reliably under all conditions
- Building geophysical models from gravitational surveys
- Guiding autonomous navigation in GNSS-denied environments, particularly for defence and security applications
This world-first innovation will strengthen Australia’s sovereign capability in the high-end uncrewed autonomous vehicle (UAV) market while enhancing SME project partners’ global competitiveness.