Building Safer Skies: Autonomous Aerial Logistics for Australia’s North 🌎🚀

Ajouté : 2026-05-26

[00:00:03]Australia's north is vast, remote, and strategically vital.

[00:00:07]To strengthen the ADF's ability to operate in this environment, Jericho is exploring autonomous aerial logistic systems designed for long distances and supporting agile operations that build fighting depths.

[00:00:20]Those aircraft need the ability to detect and avoid other aircraft.

[00:00:26]Camel Train is Jericho's concept for autonomous aerial logistics. It includes short-range precision delivery to long-range platforms that can carry much heavier cargo.

[00:00:37]Today, we're at Mission Systems in Sydney, where an Australian-developed detect-and-avoid, or DAA, radar has been purpose-designed for incorporation onto those uncrewed aerial systems.

[00:00:51]Through Jericho's disruptive experimentation program, we're exploring the possibilities for UAS to replicate the pilot's eyes with small radars so that our robotic aircraft can be safe or safer than a human pilot.

[00:01:06]Those eyes need to look out for uncooperative or uncontrolled air traffic, and that's a requirement for all UAS, not just the Camel Train autonomous aerial logistic systems, but ISR aircraft, too, like Army's Integrator and Air Force's Triton.

[00:01:24]Mission Systems is working closely with Jericho to further develop the BooBook DAA radar.

[00:01:29]It's designed to detect other aircraft in the sky day and night out to at least 7 km and provide that information to the automatic flight control computer so that the uncrewed aircraft could safely avoid the detected airplane.

[00:01:42]Every component and system is tested step-by-step as part of a regulated pathway. We begin with testing the system on small-scale uncrewed and full-scale crewed aircraft in controlled settings and gradually transition to higher levels of autonomy as the regulatory framework and technology incorporation permits. It's a careful, transparent process, one that keeps safety at the center while enabling innovation.

[00:02:06]We're learning through our other defense UAS prototypes as well, including PPDS, Aladdins, and Arcade, where defense and industry teams have conducted prototyping, autonomous flight tests, mission uploads, and early detect and avoid evaluations.

[00:02:23]Each trial gives us real data to build safer, more capable systems.

[00:02:29]These systems are a force multiplier. By taking on what seems like simple tasks, like watching the airspace out of a cockpit window with radars, autonomous aircraft will free up our aviators and crewed platforms for the tasks that only people can do, especially in demanding or contested conditions.

[00:02:49]They offer the ADF more options, greater resilience, and an innovative way to strengthen logistics across Australia's vast northern region.

[00:02:59]From remote bases to coastal locations to dispersed teams conducting littoral operations.

[00:03:06]Jericho Disruptive Innovation is leading the development of autonomous aerial logistics and their supporting technologies for Australia's future and to build fighting depth for Air Force.