To find success in Robotics and AI, Australia needs to play to its strengths and focus on the areas where it can lead the world, says Dr Navinda Kottege, acting group leader and principal research scientist at CSIRO Data61’s Robotics and Autonomous Systems Group.
Kottege was involved in setting up the Sixth Wave Alliance to develop a national robotics and autonomous systems R&D strategy.
Bringing together government, academia and industry, its goal was to create the critical mass required to address large-scale Australian and international challenges.
It was also tasked with putting into action recommendations from the Australian Robotics Roadmap.
From these discussions grew the Robotics Australia Network, designed to nurture a sustainable and internationally competitive local industry.
It became clear that Australia’s robotics and AI ecosystem is fragmented and not very visible, Kottege says.
As a result, Australian businesses look overseas for solutions, starving local players of the revenues and investment needed to grow.
“There was also a gap between what the industry wanted and what the research institutions were producing,” he says, “along with a disconnect between government policy making and where funding was going.”
A need for matchmaking between suppliers and the local robotics and AI industry was identified.
As well as giving the local industry a much-needed shot in the arm, Kottege says forging these relationships can help the nation play to its strengths on the world stage.
Australia’s focus on extracting and harvesting wealth from the ground has cultivated expertise in operating autonomously in harsh and remote environments with limited communications.
This expertise can underpin cutting edge solutions to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow. Initiatives such as the Australian Centre for Field Robotics aim to capitalise on this opportunity.
Meanwhile, CSIRO’s Data61 is one of six teams funded by the US Defence Department’s advanced research projects agency DARPA to compete in its $US2 million ($2.5 million) subterranean challenge.
DARPA is funding teams to develop innovative technologies that can rapidly map, navigate and search complex underground environments. DARPA’s challenges have a history of launching industries.
Google hired Stanford’s winning team from the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge (a driverless car competition through the Mojave Desert) to kick-start its autonomous vehicle program.
The subterranean challenge demands a level of autonomy in complex unknown environments.
This has a wide range of direct applications well-suited to Australia’s strengths: from picking crops and tackling bushfires to supporting off-world mining and exploration.
Recent initiatives have started to stem the flow of Australian talent and start-ups to Silicon Valley, Kottege says. “We are seeing a boom in robotics and AI-related start-ups, especially here in Brisbane where we’ve had companies spinning up from our lab,” he says.
“There’s a growing ecosystem of research labs, companies and industrial consumers who are working together to raise standards across the board.”
In the near team, agriculture offers one of the ripest opportunities in Australia.
The shortage of labour to pick fruit during the pandemic highlights the role autonomous robots can play, says William Pagnon, founder of Brisbane-based Freelance Robotics.
Along with selling off-the-shelf robots, Freelance Robotics has developed its own autonomous navigation system and builds bespoke robots for a range of industries.
“It’s been a long road for us,” Pagnon says.
