Novel Weapons, Novel Effects
The Australian Department of Defence has launched a special notice call for submissions for Army Innovation Day 2017 (AID17), to be held on 6 November at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra. Submissions are to be made via the Defence Innovation Hub by 13 September.
The Army is seeking proposed innovations aimed at shaping its approach to the challenges of novel weapons and novel effects in combined arms teams in joint environments. After initial evaluation, up to 30 respondents will be invited to display, exhibit and demonstrate their proposed innovations at AID17. Subsequent to this, innovations meeting what are expected to be very tough evaluation criteria may be invited to participate in a request for proposals procedure.
Specific themes for which the Army is soliciting proposals include:
- Novel weapons, to include less than lethal effects on individuals or groups (including animals) and land, sea and airborne platforms;
- Novel countermeasures against weapons to protect individuals or groups and multiple platforms;
- Novel effects in signature management of IT and/or cyber systems, for which examples might include IT or web presence when in the field – i.e. iPhone finder of soldiers’ mobiles in the field, replication or decoy and/or decoy IT presence – i.e. make more soldiers appear to be using iPhones, or management of IT or cyber presence (monitor and/or reduce).
Tim Mahon
