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Australian AI-based robotics and navigation firm Advanced Navigation has opened a new high-tech robotics facility for autonomous systems at UTS Tech Lab in Sydney’s Botany.
The facility will allow the company to scale up the manufacturing of its digital fibre-optic gyroscope (DFOG) technology, Boreas, which can be used in applications from spacecraft to submarines where GPS is not available.
It will also be used to home research collaborations with UTS, including indoor positioning technology that helps members of the visually impaired community navigate safely inside underground train stations.
At the opening, Advanced Navigation CEO Xavier Orr described how he started Advanced Navigation with fellow University of Western Australia electronics engineering student Chris Shaw, to commercialise his university thesis on AI based inertial navigation.
The company has since gone on to raise millions in funding, including a $108 million round in November. Its tech is being used by Amazon in driverless trucks, for the Indy autonomous race car competition, and in wind turbines.
“Thanks to our continued work with universities throughout Australia this has led to the development of several world-first technologies from AI navigation systems, underwater acoustics and drone fleet platforms, to autonomous underwater robots and more recently our navigation systems set for space.
“While Advanced Navigation has been around for just under 10 years these innovations are based on decades of research from prominent institutions and universities throughout Australia,” Shaw said.
UTS Dean of Engineering and IT Peta Wyeth said: “Like most great partnerships, our relationship with Advanced Navigation started small and is evolving into a multi-faceted interaction over time.
“Together we are creating new ways of working, thinking and imagining future possibilities.”
Opened in 2018, the UTS Tech Lab is a multidisciplinary research facility that supports bespoke industry-led partnerships designed to drive innovation and growth in engineering and IT.
Wyeth said while the Lab had made “impressive inroads,” it had just scratched the surface. “Our vision is to be the go-to place for industry partners to work with expert academics, a place where researchers and students can work hand in hand with industry.”
During the event the Advanced Navigation co-founder Chris Shaw thanked Lucy Turnbull for helping connect the company with UTS. The Turnbulls are investors in the company.