AAL is supporting Industry Engagement 

AAL is building relationships between academia and industry, investing in seed funding to help astronomers launch their own industry endeavours.
 Over the past two years, AAL awarded $100,000 in a first round of funding, which was split between four projects. One of these, AstroMedical Innovation, involves collaboration with The Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute to aid early detection of heart disease.

AAL is working with champions from institutions who are particularly engaged with industry in order to 
further development in this sector. See below for examples of their projects and for recent industry engagement success stories:
Wildfire monitoring from space
Fireball International – Partnering with USQ
  • Wildfire remote sensing using automated deep learning originally developed for astronomy.
  • Provides early fire early detection and real-time mapping using data fusion from one or more sensors (towers, aircraft, satellites).
  • The benefits of a dedicated large-area wildfire remote sensing satellite have been shown.
  • Collaboration includes researchers at USQ and other universities and Australian/US company Fireball.International.
  • Commissioned but independent report: “Investing in early fire detection could save $8 billion."​
  • Accelerating commercialisation grant ($500,000) to roll-out the detection system across Australia and internationally “Boost for technology to detect wildfires in minutes.” 
Advancing Australia's space industry
SmartSat
The SmartSat CRC is a consortium of universities and other research organisations, partnered with industry, funded by the Australian Government. The consortium was formed to develop technologies in advanced telecommunications and IoT connectivity, intelligent satellite systems and Earth observation next generation data services. Core partners include some key AAL member institutions, such as:
  • Swinburne University
  • ANU
  • Curtin University
  • Deakin University
  • University of Adelaide
  • University of Sydney
  • The University of Queensland
  • UNSW
Development of advanced robotics
ICRAR partnership with ST Solutions and Soft Bank Robotics
ICRAR is partnering with these companies to:
  • create possible future teaching assistants at schools and universities
  • assisting scientists to discover something new
  • create possible future assistants to introduce science at museums, expos, libraries, etc.
STSA is the solution provider, especially for the domain in Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, and Robotics. STSA promotes the development of an AIR (Artificial Intelligence + Robotics) industry as well as to expand SoftBank technology in Australia by partnering with businesses, researchers, and start-ups. 

​SoftBank Robotics Australia is bringing industry leading robotic solutions to the Australian market. 
​Development of laser communications.
ANU partnership with NASA, Australian Government
  • ANU is bringing together experts with deep technical experience in link acquisition and tracking, adaptive optics, and quantum encryption. Using adaptive optics to correct for atmospheric turbulence, they can provide robust, high-speed, free space (not optical fibre), ground-to-ground (or ship-to-shore), and ground-to-space laser communications.
  • This technology delivers data transmissions of superior quantity and range, for advanced satellite experiments and deep space exploration, for example. Quantum key distribution encrypts laser communications securely for Defence and Internet applications, such as high speed trading.
  • ANU is also collaborating with industry and NASA on space debris tracking and management, adaptive optics, and propagating laser beams through the atmosphere.

​Industry engagement success stories 

Contact us
AAL is proud to showcase examples of fruitful collaboration between the Astrophysics Research and Industry sectors.

​Click here for a PDF version of our brochure highlighting some of these success stories.
For further information about industry engagement, please contact:
E: info@astronomyaustralia.org.au
T: +61 3 9214 5520