Aussie technology for General Atomics

[sprintman]

Aussie developer to supply US Defence contractor
By Lilia Guan, CRN 22 June 2006 14:30 AEST Government/Law

Australian developer Mediaware, won a contract to supply its Unmanned Aerial Vehicle video exploitation technology to General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI), a US-based manufacturer of unmanned aircraft, surveillance and radar imaging systems.

Under the terms of the contract, Mediaware will provide the digital video capture and exploitation software for the Ground Control Station (GCS) and for GA-ASI's Predator unmanned aircraft system and army tanks, used by the US Defence Force, said Chris Newell, CEO of Mediaware.

Newell said the company has worked with the military and intelligence community in Australia and overseas for a couple of years.





“The first phase of the project is the development of the system, to be completed in August. We will then look at rolling it out,” he said.

Also as part of the agreement, Newell said Mediaware will help engineer, develop and integrate video and data dissemination enhancements for the GCS.

“These enhancements will provide video and metadata capture, exploitation and dissemination and align the Predator GCS system with current standards and interoperability requirements,” he said.

Mediaware will also provide the software necessary to combine Predator aircraft positional information and sensor video into a single MPEG-2 internet compliant digital video stream that can be exported real-time from the GCS.

It is anticipated that after the initial development phase, the GCS enhancements could be retrofitted to the Predator fleet, said Newell.

Mediaware has offices in Canberra and Sydney, Australia and in Washington DC. It began operations in 1998.

 

[Gary Allan]

It's a partial refund for all those tanks you can't use unless you're attacking Asia.

 

[sprintman]

Geez your well informed mate. "Let's buy some Abrams, they are cheap"

 

[Shannow]

And we're buying the JSF now.

reminds me of that Simpsons episode, where Homer goes up to Lenny. "You know that time you lent me $20, and I paid it back...well now it's time for YOU to do ME a favour"

 

[TheTanSedan]

Formal treaties seem extinct (except NATO, which it appears is being used to isolate Russia), such as SEATO, CENTO, etc. Product development, financial commitments, etc seem to be more of the driver in aligning nations and bridging the gap between formal commitments and "Yeah, we'll see if we can't send a few guys your way".

The Commonwealth -- be it Canada, South Africa, or other -- appears to have a wealth of smarts in small forces (their structures, requirements, training; worldview, et al) that the US DOD is increasingly calling upon. Some quite good articles the past few years on overblown US projects contrasted with tested Commonwealth stuff being effectively made as arguments.

Not sure where to go with this as an idea, but the trend (if it is that) has some steam. I'm thinking now about defense contractor civilians being in the field to test/report since WWII . . . this is the way I quoted from an article to some friends the other night:

"Militarily, Moscow could take further steps toward turning the Shanghai Cooperation Organization--now composed of Russia, China and four Central Asian states, with Iran and India possible members--into an anti-NATO defensive alliance, an "OPEC with nuclear weapons," a Western analyst warned."

Plenty of brains in those cultures. Plenty of differences too. So how to get them together? I think the above postulation offers some room for thought.

Unlike formal commitments, one need not hammer out language that all parties can "agree" upon. But the ties, "the mystic chords of memory" may be another way of achieving a similar end; the money is somewhat symbolic (when, as with the DOD, there is so much of it).

 

[Gary Allan]

TTS ...you've been holding out on us here...

 

[TheTanSedan]

With son now a USMC officer, have ramped up appropriate reading (of tea leaves). Here's an example from looking at DID tonight:

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com...-may-be-opened-to-britain-australia/index.php

Here's another:

http://www.austal.com/index.cfm?objectid=8DB9F71A-65BF-EBC1-21D9636FB6D1D3B0

The better ideas likely come from these smaller ventures than the major programs. (granted FCS isn't small, but the number of influential players -- idea generators -- will be).

There are other avenues of reading. See my earlier post (link) about Canadian Navy. I have a mental "catch" going about the Arctic once I saw that Canada is operating again in areas unpatrolled in 30-years. Trade routes are going to change due to ice melt, etc, . . so where will the Marines be going?

I'm just doing some guessing.

[ June 25, 2006, 11:17 PM: Message edited by: TheTanSedan ]

 

[sprintman]

This article about Adacel is worth reading. Isolation makes you inventive.

http://www.defence.gov.au/teamaustralia/indexcc83.html

 

[TheTanSedan]

Perfect example