General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) has further expanded the Team Reaper Australia.

Sentient Vision Systems, Team Reaper Australia’s newest member, is the only Australian provider of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) solutions that has been an integral part of every Australian Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) program to date. The inclusion of Sentient Vision further reinforces Team Reaper Australia as the only viable solution to meet the Project Air 7003 requirement, which now consists of ten Australian companies providing a range of innovative sensor, communication, manufacturing and life-cycle support capabilities.

Team Reaper Australia, originally consisting of Cobham, CAE Australia, Raytheon, and Flight Data Systems, was first announced at the Australian International Aerospace and Defence Exposition (AVALON 2017) by Linden Blue and Air Chief Marshal Sir Angus Houston, AK, DFC of Defence South Australia. Since Avalon 2017, Team Reaper Australia has expanded to ten companies, and now includes Cobham Australia, CAE Australia, Raytheon Australia, Flight Data Systems, TAE Aerospace, Rockwell Collins, Ultra Electronics Australia, Airspeed, Quickstep Holdings Ltd and Sentient Vision Systems.

Project Air 7003 will provide the Australian Defence Force with an Armed MALE RPA system that will include aircraft and Ground Control Stations (GCS) that will be fully inter-operable with Australia’s allies.

Executive Comments

Linden Blue, CEO of GA-ASI, said that General Atomics recognizes the importance of having a robust team of Australian industry partners to support the Air 7003 requirements. The company continues to be committed to partnerships with Australian industry and to providing a capable, affordable RPA system to the Australian Defence Force.

Simon Olsen, Director of Business Development, Strategy and Partnerships at Sentient Vision, said that from the foundations of the Defence Science and Technology Group’s Capability and Technology Demonstrator (CTD) program, to the company's history of deployments in support of the Australian warfighter, Sentient sees the inclusion of the firm's ViDAR wide area motion imagery payload as a part of Team Reaper Australia in support of the Air 7003 requirement as a reinforcement of Australian leadership in advanced autonomy.