Perth’s Strategic Elements Ltd (ASX: SOR) subsidiary Stealth Electronics – along with The University of Western Australia, has been granted $500,000 in Federal Government funding support for research into Electric Drive Systems and a Driverless Vehicles project.
Strategic Elements Managing Director, Charles Murphy, said the company is backing the development of a proprietary autonomous robotics platform with a team of international award-winning PhD and Masters engineers with deep experience in AI, computer vision, autonomous vehicles and robotics for both software and hardware.
Mr Murphy said the objective of the Automotive Engineering Graduate programme is to help automotive businesses grow, improve productivity and be globally competitive by increasing the pipeline of high quality graduate engineers into Australia’s automotive engineering sector. A team of four UWA researchers will collaborate with experts from Stealth Technologies on the commercial development of the company’s technology.
Stealth Technologies has the right to commercialise the Project IP. All rights, title and interest in any Background IP will remain with the Party that provided that Background IP. Each Party grants to the other a royalty free, non- exclusive licence to use its Background IP solely for the purpose of performing the Project or supporting the exploitation and commercialisation of the Project IP by the Company. UWA retains the right to use IP in further research.
The AxV Platform under development incorporates autonomous vehicles, robotics and computer vision and we are receiving increased demand as a response to the current global environment,” Mr Murphy said.
“The existing agreement with Honeywell on autonomous robotic security vehicles is a priority, however Stealth is experiencing growing interest across research sector and commercial parties.
“We were particularly attracted to this project as an opportunity to expand our current relationship with UWA Professor Thomas Bräunl, who has previous experience with Driver-Assistance Systems with Daimler and on Electric Vehicle Charging Systems with BMW.”
The Australian Government has registered Strategic Elements as a Pooled Development Fund with a mandate to back Australian innovation. Strategic Elements operates as a ‘venture builder’ where it generates high risk-high reward ventures and projects from combining teams of leading scientists or innovators in the technology or resources sectors.