More than $18 million for Australian emerging aviation technology partnerships

The Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment has part­nered with indus­try to ensure the take-up of emerg­ing avi­a­tion tech­nol­o­gy in Aus­tralia, with more than $18 mil­lion award­ed for 12 projects under the first round of the Emerg­ing Avi­a­tion Tech­nol­o­gy Part­ner­ships (EATP) Pro­gramme.

The EATP Pro­gramme com­mits $32.6 mil­lion to June 2024 to make Aus­tralian avi­a­tion more com­pet­i­tive, effi­cient and sus­tain­able. The remain­ing fund­ing will be allo­cat­ed as part of Round 2.

Grants sup­port­ed under Round 1 of the pro­gram sup­port a range of projects that include devel­op­ment into dig­i­tal farm­ing, boost­ing region­al sup­ply chains, con­nect­ing region­al com­mu­ni­ties and grow­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing in emerg­ing avi­a­tion tech­nol­o­gy. Appli­ca­tions were assessed through an open and com­pet­i­tive grant process.

Infra­struc­ture, Trans­port, Region­al Devel­op­ment and Local Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Cather­ine King com­ment­ed: “The EATP Pro­gramme will ensure that our avi­a­tion sec­tor remains at the fore­front of inno­va­tion as it con­tin­ues to devel­op and grow, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the renewed focus on achiev­ing net zero car­bon emis­sions.

“This pro­gram will direct­ly sup­port region­al com­mu­ni­ties in improv­ing health ser­vices and con­nec­tions, as well as enhanc­ing the capa­bil­i­ties of Aus­tralian busi­ness­es in deliv­er­ing new avi­a­tion oper­a­tions with increased tech­ni­cal com­plex­i­ty.”

Fed­er­al Assis­tant Min­is­ter for Infra­struc­ture and Trans­port Car­ol Brown added: “The EATP Pro­gramme will boost employ­ment in the avi­a­tion sec­tor, as well as con­tribute to the dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion of Aus­tralian busi­ness­es by encour­ag­ing adop­tion of emerg­ing avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies to address com­mu­ni­ty needs, par­tic­u­lar­ly in region­al Aus­tralia.

“The pro­gram also aims to iden­ti­fy and address reg­u­la­to­ry and oth­er bar­ri­ers present with­in the sec­tor.”

Fund­ed projects from EATP Round 1
AMSL Aero
Elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing (eVTOL) air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ing focus­ing on reg­u­la­to­ry bar­ri­ers and tri­als of air ambu­lance in region­al NSW.

Prax­is Labs
Devel­op struc­tur­al solar sur­faces for the wings of an upcom­ing fleet of Aus­tralian elec­tric air­craft.

Hov­er UAV SORA-Mate
Devel­op an online risk assess­ment tool for drone oper­a­tors.

Cen­tral Queens­land Uni­ver­si­ty
Devel­op and tri­al a pro­to­type drone sys­tem capa­ble of AI dri­ven weed detec­tion and her­bi­cide spray­ing (dig­i­tal farm­ing).

Wed­getail Aero­space Pty Ltd
Large Drone oper­a­tions in region­al Aus­tralia includ­ing pilot and main­te­nance qual­i­fi­ca­tions, capa­bil­i­ty ver­i­fi­ca­tion and val­i­da­tion.

Charles Dar­win Uni­ver­si­ty
Tri­al of drone ser­vice deliv­ery for health-relat­ed items between health cen­tres, remote indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and very remote out­sta­tions in NT. The project will test and val­i­date the effec­tive­ness, effi­cien­cy, com­mu­ni­ty accep­tance and costs of inte­grat­ing uncrewed air­craft into health sup­ply chains.

Rev­o­lu­tion Aero­space Pty Ltd
Research to sup­port and con­duct tri­als to deliv­er car­go in Whit­sun­day region using a vari­ety of drones, deliv­ery dis­tances and deliv­ery sce­nar­ios; tri­als to sim­u­late air taxi oper­a­tions in the Whit­sun­day region, and research to devel­op enhanced uncrewed traf­fic man­age­ment ser­vices.

Field Mas­ter Sys­tems Pty Ltd DFSS
Inte­grat­ing ther­mal imag­ing into drones to detect fer­al pests.

Swin­burne Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy (Air Hub)
Design and inte­grate a hydro­gen fuel cell into a drone, with ground and flight test­ing.

Mar­lee Djin­da Pty Ltd
Build, cer­ti­fy and inte­grate a drone with cam­eras and sen­sors to deliv­er a Land­care man­age­ment pro­gram on the lands of the Kan­pa com­mu­ni­ty with­in the Ngaany­at­jar­ra Abo­rig­i­nal Land Coun­cil in West­ern Aus­tralia.

Swoop Aero Pty Ltd
Roll out a large-scale mul­ti-role drone logis­tics net­work com­menc­ing in the Dar­ling Downs south west region and expand­ing into south east QLD and north­ern NSW focus­ing on pathol­o­gy and med­ical logis­tics.

XROTOR Pty Ltd
Devel­op­ment, test­ing and tri­alling of a new pro­peller design for both emerg­ing and tra­di­tion­al air­craft with reduced noise impact and high­er propul­sion effi­cien­cy com­pared to tra­di­tion­al pro­pellers.