Queensland is evolving into an AUKUS force

Pillar 2 of AUKUS identifies six ‘advanced capabilities’ which will be the focus of joint R&D and acquisition, and domains where Queensland has established leadership.

An Australian Army officer watches two fully autonomous M113 AS4 optionally crewed combat vehicle (OCCV) in an experiential program run by BAE Systems Australia and TAS DCRC.

There’s more to AUKUS than just nuclear-powered submarines: they are only Pillar 1 of the tripartite AUKUS Agreement. Pillar 2 identifies six “advanced capabilities” which will be the focus of joint R&D and acquisition. Among them are domains where Queensland has established leadership: undersea capabilities, artificial intelligence and autonomy, hypersonics, electronic warfare and quantum technology.

The mechanics of AUKUS Pillar 2 are being worked out by Defence’s Strategic Policy branch and its opposite numbers in Washington and London, and remain a work in progress. But there’s no doubting Australia’s, and Queensland’s, ability to contribute to both sovereign and joint aims.

South East Queensland has become a world leader in hypersonics: building uncrewed (and eventually crewed) aircraft to fly at more than Mach 5. Manned hypersonic aircraft can shrink global travel times for passengers and cargo while hypersonic missiles can be the most lethal strike weapons in a country’s armoury.

The University of Queensland (UQ) conducted the world’s first successful hypersonic flight in 2002. It is now home to the Australian Program Office for Advanced Hypersonics (APOAH).

In August, UQ will complete construction of a Defence-endorsed Secret (Level 4) research facility in Brisbane. This will allow connectivity to Defence and potentially US communications networks to enable the sharing of information, and will therefore be a key enabler of joint activity under AUKUS Pillar 2.

Defence has worked with UQ since that first successful launch and now has its own classified facility in Brisbane, the Hypersonics Research Precinct, which enables DSTG researchers to develop sovereign hypersonic technologies at large scale. This facility also supports the joint US-Australia SCIFiRE hypersonics research program which teams Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG) with the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

Alongside APOAH is UQ’s Centre for Advanced Materials Processing and Manufacturing, or AMPAM. A key focus of AMPAM is high temperature materials which are essential to space and hypersonics. The centre is working closely with Dr Michael Smart, the chief technology officer of Brisbane-based company Hypersonix Launch Systems Limited. Under an $8m federal government grant the company is developing a hypersonic aircraft and engine, the 3m-long DART AE (Additive Engineering). The DART AE is 3D-printed using high-temperature ceramic-matrix composites and has an oxygen-breathing, hydrogen-fuelled supersonic combustion ramjet, or SCRAMJET. It was selected earlier this year from a field of 63 companies by the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) as the test vehicle for its ­Hypersonic and High-Cadence Airborne Testing Capabilities (HyCAT) program. In HyCAT the DART AE will be used to fly a ­manoeuverable flight profile that can be repeated at short intervals.

Queensland has also ­become a force in AI and autonomy, another of the “advanced capabilities” identified in AUKUS Pillar 2. Brisbane-based Boeing Defence Australia designed and is now flight testing the MQ-28A Ghost Bat autonomous aircraft which the Defence Strategic Review has urged into production for the RAAF and other customers (including the USAF) at a new factory in Toowoomba.

Queensland has developed mastery in several technologies that are important to all the AUKUS partners under Pillar 2

Much of the intellectual heavy lifting in AI and autonomy has been done by the Trusted Autonomous Systems Defence CRC (TAS DCRC) in Brisbane which is wrestling with the fundamental technical, ethical and regulatory challenges facing users and manufacturers globally. Funded by Defence’s Next Generation Technologies Fund (NGTF) and other Defence programs, the TAS DCRC is working with prime contractors such as Austal, BAE Systems Australia, Boeing, DefendTex, Ocius and Thales Australia on everything from the ethics of autonomous systems and the teaming of multiple autonomous players, to new launch and recovery systems for Autonomous Underwater Vessels (AUVs).

“TAS DCRC stands ready to contribute to both sovereign and joint autonomy and AI programs,” chief executive Glen Schafer says.

The TAS DCRC has worked closely with the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) on aspects of the new ReefWorks maritime test range for AUVs and surface vessels off the coast near Townsville. (The state government contributed $2m towards the establishment of ReefWorks.)

Queensland has wide, unencumbered spaces and little RF background “noise” so is also home to multiple ranges for autonomous air and land vehicles: it is a good environment for safe and discreet testing of AUVs and Autonomous and Unmanned Air and Surface Vehicles (UAVs and USVs). The secure Queensland Flight Test Range at Cloncurry was set up with $16m-worth of support from the Queensland government, specifically to test Australia’s growing number of UAVs.

Quantum Technologies is another AUKUS Pillar 2 advanced capability domain. Two out of three national quantum science research centres are located at the University of Queensland: the Australian Research Council’s Centres of Excellence in Quantum Biotechnology, and Engineered Quantum Systems, says Professor Warwick Bowen, director of the first and temporarily chief investigator for the second.

A short-term focus of both AUKUS Pillar 2 and Defence is Quantum-enabled Position, Navigation and Timing – how to navigate accurately when GPS is jammed. The university has been working on sensors to enable this, says Bowen, and at EX RIMPAC 22 in Hawaii, UQ worked with the University of Adelaide’s Institute of Photonics to demonstrate a successful approach to the problem. The exact details and outcomes are classified, but Defence was happy, says Bowen.

Queensland has developed mastery in several technologies that are important to all the AUKUS partners under Pillar 2, so there’s no doubt Australia will be pulling its weight when this joint program gets under way.