Defence Innovation Network has awarded funding to three exceptional R&D defence projects through its Pilot Projects Program. This annual, competitive program supports cross-discipline university collaboration in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory with a mission to drive innovation and technological advancements in the defence sector.
The program aims to conduct rapid feasibility studies on novel ideas for Defence, transforming these concepts into viable technologies or solutions. By fostering collaboration across various disciplines, we seek to develop projects that can attract further investment from the government or industry and address existing or emerging Defence and industry needs.
These projects not only address critical capability needs but also foster partnerships between academia, industry, and government, driving our national security forward.
The three projects selected for this year’s Pilot Projects program exemplify the ingenuity and collaborative spirit that define the DIN:
- PDMS-based slippery covalently attached liquid coatings for CBRN protective garments – led by the University of Sydney in collaboration with the University of New South Wales.
This project will use non-toxic and environmentally friendly materials to develop a prototype coated nylon fabric with CBRN-repellent and self-cleaning properties.
- Project Denial of service exploration and prevention for Generative Pretrained Transformer models – led by the University of New South Wales in collaboration with the University of Wollongong, Western Sydney University and the University of Sydney.
The project will develop a robust and transparent end-to-end system to certify that transformer-based generative language models are resilient to denial of service or “sponge” attacks.
- Remote environmental sensing of marine phytoplankton communities using undersea and above water platforms – led by Macquarie University in collaboration with the University of Technology Sydney and the University of Newcastle.
This project will demonstrate a concept for real-time monitoring of phytoplankton distributions in marine environments based on inelastic scattering LiDAR.
