Silentium Defence eyes AIR6500 support
29 June 2022
The Adelaide-based company is exploring opportunities to integrate its technology into Lockheed Martin’s future JABM solution.
Silentium Defence, an Australian passive surveillance technology provider, has confirmed it is designing and testing capabilities for potential incorporation into Lockheed Martin Australia’s (LMA) future Joint Air Battle Management solution, developed as part of the Royal Australian Air Force’s AIR6500 Phase 1 Project (AIR6500-1).
Over the past 12 months, Silentium Defence has been working with LMA Lockheed Martin Australia to assess whether its MAVERICK passive radar capability can be integrated into an open architecture framework to support concepts and application development for AIR6500.
Dr James Palmer, CEO of Silentium Defence, welcomed the opportunity to work with the prime to develop a “first-of-type” sovereign solution for the Australian Defence Force.
“It is a privilege to work on AIR6500-1 and collaborate with like-minded Australian industry partners, Defence, academia, and government to develop groundbreaking technologies that can be integrated in the program solution,” Dr Palmer said.
“Driven by a sovereign open architecture and tactical cloud, the program design supports Silentium Defence and other Australian industry partners to rapidly add capabilities into the solution to meet evolving operational needs of the Australian Defence Force.
“Lockheed Martin Australia AIR6500-1’s solution is highly secure and flexible, which meant it was a straightforward process for Silentium Defence to fuse our technologies into their systems architecture.”
Silentium Defence’s distributed passive radar network aims to provide a cost effective, covert, and comprehensive situational awareness picture to contribute to the broader AIR6500-1 Joint Air Battle Management System.
This includes the delivery of highly mobile tactical systems through to deployable strategic long-range early warning systems.
The MAVERICK offering is being developed and considered across the land, air, maritime, and space domains; and has received interest from international customers.
“We are proud to be contributing to a major defence program that will be delivered in Australia by Australians for Australia and will create local jobs for Defence Industry,” Dr Palmer added.
Kendell Kuczma, Lockheed Martin Australia AIR6500 capture manager, said this latest partnership builds on years of collaboration.
“We have been working with Silentium Defence for many years now. They’ve been a remarkable partner, highly collaborative and engaged in designing, testing, and integrating groundbreaking passive radar technologies into our AIR6500 system solution,” Kuczma said.
“This technology gives the ADF a strategic advantage by enabling real-time, persistent situational awareness of future threats using alternative and complementary technology to AIR6500-1 capabilities.”
Earlier this year, Silentium Defence was named as the second Australian company to take part in Lockheed Martin’s global Mentor Protégé Program (MPP).
The intensive 12-month program facilitates access to Lockheed Martin’s leading subject matter experts across Australia and the United States.
This involves business development coaching and the provision of strategies and tools aimed at accelerating business growth and maturation across ethics, contracting, quality, cyber security and understanding ITAR.
Source: Defence Connect