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The Western Australia-based drone company has signed an agreement with Planck Aerosystems to develop autonomous land and launch capability.
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Strategic Elements subsidiary Stealth Technologies has partnered with US-based autonomous drone technology company Planck Aerosystems.
The companies have agreed to collaborate over a six-month period to develop autonomous launch and land capability from Stealth’s ground-based autonomous vehicle platform (AxV).
Specifically:
- Planck will provide autonomous control engine (ACE) technology for integration into Stealth autonomous vehicles, and any other technologies agreed by the parties;
- The parties will explore commercial, industrial and defence applications and opportunities;
- Plank will provide Stealth a royalty-free, non-exclusive, licence to use software for the purposes of the collaboration for duration of the term; and
- Stealth will pay for any hardware provided under the project, with any further payments to be agreed between the parties on a case-by-case basis.
Planck is expected to leverage its vision-based precision technology, capable of landing drones on moving platforms without GPS.
This would support the development of Stealth technologies’ Autonomous Security Vehicle (ASV) for perimeter security in sectors such as transport, energy, defence, government and utilities.
The Stealth and Planck collaboration aims to enable the long runtimes of the ASV to be combined with the high speed of drones.
This would allow the drones to be launched from the ASV at any time while on patrol, which according to Stealth Technologies could double the ASV’s surveillance coverage capabilities.
The collaboration also aims to allow drones to recharge once landed on the ASV before being relaunched.
According to Stealth Technologies, the perspectives of both the ASV and its drone can be combined to give an expanded patrol and surveillance dataset, enabling more AI use cases for mapping, navigation, object and person recognition, object and person tracking, and scene reasoning.
Stealth and Planck have also committed to assessing the potential of integrating mobile tethered drones with the ASV.
This is expected to give additional deployment options for drone-equipped ASVs to work at facilities located near to controlled airspaces and at those that have safety requirements, which normally preclude drone operation.
[Related: Darwin-based Marines test unmanned aerial systems to support ISR capability]
Charbel Kadib
News Editor – Defence and Security, Momentum Media
Prior to joining the defence and aerospace team in 2020, Charbel was news editor of The Adviser and Mortgage Business, where he covered developments in the banking and financial services sector for three years. Charbel has a keen interest in geopolitics and international relations, graduating from the University of Notre Dame with a double major in politics and journalism. Charbel has also completed internships with The Australian Department of Communications and the Arts and public relations agency Fifty Acres.
