Advanced Navigation has been awarded a grant by the Department of Defence to advance Australia’s sovereign manufacturing capability for photonic chips.
The company stated that they are the first and only to produce this technology in the country, and have plans to manufacture 45000 photonic chips per year.
As part of the Sovereign Industrial Capability Priority grant, the Department of Defence has awarded Advanced Navigation $306,631.
“The technological breakthroughs enabled by photonic chips offer new opportunities for defence and commercial applications requiring always available, ultra-high accuracy, orientation and navigation, including subsea, marine, robotics, aerospace and space," said Xavier Orr, Advanced Navigation CEO and co-founder.
"Advanced Navigation is honoured to be a major driver of this capability, and empower technologies to safeguard national security in a time defined by technological warfare and geopolitical uncertainty.”
Advanced Navigation uses photonic chips in its fibre-optic gyroscopes (FOG) inertial navigation systems (INS), used for Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing (A-PNT) across Defence to enable autonomous capability, accurate positioning and asset tracking.