Sydney-based counterdrone pioneer DroneShield has taken out the Translation Hero award at the InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence for its successful commercialisation of cutting-edge radio frequency AI technology.
The InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence were presented at a black-tie gala dinner at The Venue Alexandria in Sydney on Wednesday night.
The Translation Hero category recognises individual or team excellence in the commercialisation of deep tech intellectual property, with tech research leading to fruitful commercialisation outcomes.
DroneShield was awarded the gong for its radio frequency AI product incorporated in its range of counterdrone hardware and software, allowing for the more effective detection and neutralisation of malicious drones for use by law enforcement, the military and other stakeholders.
The Translation Hero award was sponsored by the CSIRO On Innovation Program. The award was presented on the night by CSIRO executive manager, innovation programs, science connect, Tennille Eyre.
DroneShield also won the AI Industry Pioneer category at the InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence.
DroneShield has been pioneering counterdrone technologies since it was launched in Virginia in the United States in 2014. It listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2016 and is now a substantially Australian-owned company.
The company provides a range of hardware and software services focusing on combating drones for the use of military, government, law enforcement, critical infrastructure and the protection of VIPs.
This is achieved through the combination of radio frequency sensing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, sensor fusion, electronic warfare, rapid prototyping and MIL-SPEC manufacturing.
DroneShield’s new radio frequency AI tools utilise deep learning in order to classify and sort radio frequency signals in real-time on its software-defined radio hardware platforms.
This allows for the quicker and more effective identification and tracking of drones, with far fewer false alarms than previous offerings.
“DroneShield has long held a place at the front of the pack, and is on track to maintain that lead,” DroneShield chief technology officer Angus Bean said.
“Recognition on this front is reassurance that DroneShield is standing by these values as it grows from a small local startup to shine as a beacon of what a success story of Australian industry can look like.”
The two awards cap off what Mr Bean said has been a “wildly successful” year for DroneShield, which has seen its year-on-year revenue jump by 110 percent, its team grow from 89 to 186 people, launch a number of new products and scale up its manufacturing facilities.
“DroneShield has had a wildly successful year, reaping the benefits of past innovations and using that gain to sow the seeds for continuing this high pace of research, development and production,” Mr Bean said.
“DroneShield has a long history of breaking ground in the counterdrone landscape, which has a reputation for being one of the fastest evolving technical spheres due to the variety of topics it covers.”
The other finalists for the Translation Hero Award were Artrya, Rux Energy and Verbotics Weld.
The InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence are supported by the Australian Computer Society, Investment NSW, Department of Industry, Science and Resources, Technology Council of Australia, TechnologyOne, National Artificial Intelligence Centre, CSIRO’s ON Innovation Program, Reason Group, Q-CTRL, University of New South Wales, South by South-West Sydney and IP Australia.
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