Engineers from Ulladulla have been praised for working round the clock during the past two months of testing unmanned surface vessels off the South Coast.
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Ocius Technology CEO Dr Robert Dane, a former Milton GP, reported their bluebottle USVs have successfully completed all sea trials three months ahead of schedule.
In November, the Defence Innovation Hub awarded $1.7 million to OCIUS to determine the "viability of an intelligent command and control network of persistent unmanned surface vessels".
Ocius has now completed all its sea trials for the defence contract, Dr Dane said.
"I would like to acknowledge our Ocius engineers in Sydney and Ulladulla. Over a marathon eight weeks, often working round the clock in shifts as the 'human on the loop', this team combined their different skills to achieve an outstanding result. Thank you and congratulations on a job well done," Dr Dane said.
An important test for the crew was demonstrating its "visual acuity target recognition and collision avoidance" software. The testing involved a bluebottle on a collision course with a small, rigid hull inflatable boat sailing low to the water.
The bluebottle recognised the boat was not water or sky, identified it as a speedboat, and then plotted a course to avoid a collision before proceeding around the vessel.
"This all happened autonomously such that if the BB did not have communications at the time, it would avoid the collision and when comms came back it would send photos and GPS to the rest of the team and to the 'human on the loop'."
Dr Dane thanked AMSA, Transport NSW, local fisherman and local mariners.
"Particularly we'd like to thank Ulladulla Marine Rescue and their Unit Commander Dave Hall for all their help in these trials."
