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National
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He was the popular country village GP and hobby yachtie who entered competitions with his mates for fun.
More than 25 years later, Robert Dane is now the toast of the Australian Defence Force with his creation plugging a capability gap and redefining Australia’s maritime frontline national defences.
“If you’d had asked whether we ever thought we’d be working with Army or navy we’d think that insane,” Mr Dane, who has since dropped his former Dr title, said.
“We started just with a bunch of friends from Ulladulla (NSW South Coast), with a solar boat race in Canberra in 1997 and here we are.”
Mr Dane and his Sydney-based engineering firm Ocius Technology has just delivered an initial $4.9 million order of five “BlueBottle” unscrewed surface vessels (USV) which can provide 24/7 on-water surveillance capability to patrol Australia’s north powered just by the sun, wind and waves.
That means no refuelling and low cost, just solar panels that can be remotely raised and lowered as a sail and virtually on permanent patrol of our seas and waterways monitored and tasked remotely from afar.
Trials late last year of the 22-ft (6.7m) BlueBottle, with an amphibious Army force in the Timor Sea proved highly successful, it was then used by Australian Border Force for a 450 nautical mile mission about Ashmore Reef between Broome and Indonesia and later Christmas Island for five months of “picket duty”. Then came the RAN.
“What we’ve done as an agile little company is to work with people in uniform to make sure that we give them what they want,” Mr Dane said. “They’ve got a choice, they can put a manned ship out on Ashmore at 90,000 dollars a day or a BlueBottle out there for $4000 a day. It does fit a capability demand.”
From winning that solar boat race on Canberra’s Lake Burley Griffin, Mr Dane and his team largely with engineer backgrounds developed a hybrid electric ferry business and successfully sold ferries around the world before the Global Financial Crash in 2008 saw oil at just $30 a barrel and business dry up.
“But we got inquiries if we could use the technology to go to sea forever and we started to think about that and in 2013 put some models out, in 2015 got an innovations grant, then 2020 operations, contracts and procurements,” he said.
Domestically Marine Parks Australia in February trialled two BlueBottles working in tandem and capturing in 360-degree day/night infra-red cameras, radar and satellite communications
images 20 nautical miles off Perth and in one week caught 19 recreational fisherman operating illegally, as opposed to the 15 a year currently being busted by Parks boats.
Assistant Minister Defence Matt Thistlethwaite said the Ocius BlueBottle capability would strengthen our Navy’s ability to protect Australia’s trade routes, shipping, and marine resources “to help secure Australia’s ongoing economic prosperity and national security”.
“Uncrewed Surface Vessels will also provide the navy with a platform for continuous experimentation, including support to other autonomous surface and sub-surface systems,” he said, referring to underwater drones such as the Ghost Shark currently being developed for the RAN by Andruil Australia.
The Australia Border Force’s Maritime Border Command confirmed it was also looking at the USV to support its manned fleet for offshore people smuggling and drug trafficking.
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