Sentient Vision to Provide ISR Capability for Australian Defence Force UAS

By Mike Ball / 04 Sep 2018
Reaper UAS
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Reaper UAS

Sentient Vision Systems has announced that it has joined Team Reaper Australia, a group headed by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) that aims to provide the Australian Defence Force with an armed Medium-altitude, Long-endurance (MALE) Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) system.

Sentient Vision Systems is the only Australian provider of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconaissance (ISR) solutions that has been an integral part of every Australian Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) program to date. The inclusion of Sentient Vision further reinforces Team Reaper Australia as the only viable solution to meet the Project Air 7003 requirement, which now consists of ten Australian companies providing a range of innovative sensor, communication, manufacturing and life-cycle support capabilities.

“General Atomics recognizes the importance of having a robust team of Australian industry partners to support the Air 7003 requirements,” said Linden Blue, CEO, GA-ASI. “We continue to be committed to partnerships with Australian industry and to providing a capable, affordable RPA system to the Australian Defence Force.”

“Sentient is proud of our close collaboration with the Australian Government. From our foundations of the Defence Science and Technology Group’s Capability and Technology Demonstrator (CTD) program to our proud history of deployments in support of the Australian warfighter, Sentient sees the inclusion of our ViDAR wide area motion imagery payload as a part of Team Reaper Australia in support of the Air 7003 requirement as a reinforcement of Australian leadership in advanced autonomy,” said Simon Olsen, Director of Business Development, Strategy and Partnerships at Sentient Vision Systems.

Team Reaper Australia, originally consisting of Cobham, CAE Australia, Raytheon, and Flight Data Systems, was first announced at the Australian International Aerospace and Defence Exposition (AVALON 2017) by Linden Blue and Air Chief Marshal Sir Angus Houston, AK, DFC of Defence South Australia. Since Avalon 2017, Team Reaper Australia has expanded to ten companies and now includes Cobham Australia, CAE Australia, Raytheon Australia, Flight Data Systems, TAE Aerospace, Rockwell Collins, Ultra Electronics Australia, Airspeed, Quickstep Holdings Ltd and Sentient Vision Systems.

Project Air 7003 will include the development of aircraft and Ground Control Stations (GCS) that will be fully inter-operable with Australia’s allies.

Posted by Mike Ball Mike Ball is our resident technical editor here at Unmanned Systems Technology. Combining his passion for teaching, advanced engineering and all things unmanned, Mike keeps a watchful eye over everything related to the unmanned technical sector. With over 10 years’ experience in the unmanned field and a degree in engineering, Mike’s been heading up our technical team here for the last 8 years. Connect & Contact