And we're going to move now to Mr Phil Boxall, who is our Branch Manager for Technology and Innovation,
and he leads an incredibly innovative and capable crew,
who are just absolutely essential, as Virginia mentioned this morning, to helping
us actually implement the science that we want to achieve.
Phil has enabled science projects, including the Million Year Ice Core drill that Tas spoke about. He's currently very focused
on commissioning Nuyina's new science systems and constructing that new krill aquarium.
Phil discovered European carp in Tasmania in 1995, but was also a founding member of the project which
eradicated them, without chemicals from a large public water body. Fun fact! Over to you Phil.
Thank you for the introduction Nicole, and hello everyone.
I'm very privileged to be here today, to represent the Technology & Innovation Branch.
It's a great privilege to lead such a great, a great branch within the Australian Antarctica Division.
Our motto within the branch, is to innovate, create and achieve in support of science.
Technology and science have a symbiotic relationship. With the new invigorated science priorities and
initiatives, coupled with increased funding, we have an amazing opportunity for Antarctic science,
and importantly, for increasing influence for the benefit of the nation and the world.
So some of the main branch purposes are to, we develop new capabilities in emerging
technologies for the AAP, and also the AAD.
We manage core technical functions and facilities.
We curate and deliver data mapping information collections, and Dr Jonathan Kool will have
more to say about that in the next talk.
And importantly, we also support the AAD to provide world-leading platforms for great outcomes.
We have teams within T&I that also, we design and manufacture everything from tiny electrical systems to
containerised aquariums, up to 10 metre long Million Year Ice core drills.
This is all in support of science outcomes.
We also manage major science projects. So it's been mentioned before by Nicole and also by Rob King,
we're managing, hopefully very soon, and there'll be an announcement in relation to a new Southern
Ocean krill facility in conjunction with UTAS in Hobart.
And we also identify and manage the introduction of new capabilities.
You know, for example, long-range drone technology.
We like to think that we help to enable science to be undertaken successfully within Antarctica,
and also very lucky that T&I is made up of highly committed,
dedicated and experienced personnel, able to translate requirements into equipment,
capable of ongoing operation within the Southern Ocean and Antarctica.
So for anyone that's been down, that's not an easy place in which to conduct science.
Some background and where we've arrived at the moment was that Nuyina was delivered
in 2021 and it's been mentioned before, an absolute game changer for Antarctic science,
for science more generally.
It's the pre-eminent platform within Australia.
Think of Nuyina, I'd like I like to think of it as a floating station, but it has far more
scientific capability than our stations do. The opportunity to use it now and into the future is just amazing.
To think about the way that the ship's been designed, and the capabilities we can
bring on and off, on board that vessel.
The recent O'Kane review, which was the external order of the science program, with the recommendations of
the Science Decadal Plan for a reinvigorated science program, that's a godsend for Technology & Innovation.
That really helps to guide us in relation to the priorities that we need to work on into the future.
In addition to that the the AAD executive have endorsed the development of a Technological Decadal Plan,
which will dovetail nicely into the Science Decadal Plan.
I thought I'd just give a quick snapshot of the AAT, and it's just in relation to the sheer size of it.
We have a claim of 42% of Antarctica, but it's approximately 8 times the size of Australia.
And we have three small stations in that whole area, and we have one ship.
So we see the use of technology will significantly increase our ability to collect scientific data now,
and certainly into the future, and also the increased use of technology will assist in
relation to our presence on the ice, in the air, and on the water, and in the water.
Our future capabilities - so here we can see some capabilities which have already been utilised in Antarctica.
And we'd like to think that they will grow into the future.
And the role of the Technology and Innovation Branch is to support science with the introduction
of new capabilities, to support scientific outcomes.
And I do apologize there's been no collusion, but you'll see a number of similar shots from other presentations.
So future capabilities, so the task at hand, we have a mandate to develop and
introduce new technologies, to increase our presence, to collect far more scientific data
and to support other areas within the AAP, such as Operations and Infrastructure.
And also importantly, enhance our safety in everything we do in Antarctica.
We're also, we like to think will be integral but I'm sure we will be,
in relation to the successful outcomes for idea and the East Antarctica monitoring program.
And also we feed into other large projects such as the infrastructure renewal program,
and importantly it's an opportunity for us to to de-link some of the successful
science outcomes from being wholly reliant
on Nuyina and station, so we see opportunities to deploy capabilities without having that dedicated
requirement from stations and from ships to enable more science to be undertaken.
So, some of the challenges we see ahead, the scale of Antarctica as I mentioned before,
it's 8 times the size of Australia. The isolation.
We have to develop and maintain and deploy equipment that's able to withstand the very harsh conditions,
and extreme conditions as we can see from the photo here, the access to spares to ensure the
equipment works correctly and the long leading time in which to actually deploy the equipment.
Restricted access - we don't have buses and planes going every day to Antarctica.
So science has to ensure, and so does Technology & Innovation,
that we feed in as an enabler for science, to ensure that we can take every opportunity
available to us to deploy relevant equipment, and to ensure that equipment works correctly.
And we also have competing demands, as well in relation to demands for, we have to keep stations
running. And we don't have unlimited beds on the station, so we have to really be careful
in regards to making sure whatever we undertake in Antarctica has the utmost chance of success.
We also have many bespoke issues - the effect of temperature on batteries,
materials, plastics and computer boards. The location of the South Magnetic Pole within the
Australian Antarctic Territory, and the very large magnetic inclination and declination effects,
in essence, you know compasses don't work like they do here.
And also we have the GPS drop out from the single constellation.
All issues that we work with within the branch.
Looking forward to remote sensing opportunities and at the AAD we have our own Artemis, which
I'm happy to say has launched. We chose Artemis for the name is the Great Goddess of Nature,
and we thought that was a very opportune name to put to this rather innovative technology.
It's a self-contained system, equipped with two cameras,
the first for the AAD, a weather station and a satellite link that enables images and weather
to be transmitted at the term and time intervals.
We can adjust that from head office in Hobart.
All powered by 100% renewable energy and from an array of solar panels and batteries
that will allow continuous operation even through the Antarctic winter.
And this is somewhat similar to another vision that we saw earlier. And this is a future vision
for technology within the Australian Antarctic Territory.
This will be guided and informed by the Science Decadal Plan to expand the breadth and quality of science data being obtained.
We have a number of items there that will be highlighted, but an interesting area
that we'd like to increase our capacity, and certainly with the formation of the Australian Science Agency,
an area that we would like to work with closer, but we certainly see space as a force multiplier for more science.
And there's implications for communications, data and transfer, operations, and safety and also increased earth observations.
The use of long-range drones to increase our mapping capacity,
and again having more up-to-date maps, certainly assists us from a policy point of view,
but also for safety and for more efficient science operations.
The use of drone technology for crevasse detection - again if we have safer
programs, we can get onto stations quicker and earlier, means more time for our scientists.
The use of drone technology for wildlife surveys, for either ship, or station.
Also the use of drone technology for sea ice detection.
This can be used for also monitoring, but importantly of the way that we look at it
internally, is that when we send Nuyina to Antarctica to resupply operations,
and in previous vessels quite often the ships would be delayed through ice, so if we can get
somewhat ahead of the game and make that operation more efficient, and it turns a resupply around
quicker that then relates in more time for the ship to be conducting dedicated science.
We also have future possibility for cargo deliveries and this can
be small items to fill camps, scientific samples, and so forth.
And the use of un-crewed surface vessels, which is already being utilised throughout, around
the world, able to operate in close proximity to ice with a suite of scientific instruments
which can be altered and can be deployed from Australia and to head down to Antarctica.
And the use of un-crewed surface vessels for hydro acoustic surveys, for mapping and for hydrographic work,
is also certainly a possibility we have now and increasingly into the future.
And the ongoing use of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, especially for under ice. That sort of
technology has already been proven. The technology is progressing very well
and there's more and more opportunities into the future to use these types of
technology to increase the amount of science data that we're generating.
And also into the future, Autonomous Ground Vehicles,
so we'll be able to access areas without the need to support deep-field deployments of personnel.
Now we do have a short movie which will just demonstrate
some of the existing technologies and where we're potentially heading into the future.
As mentioned Nuyina is an absolute game-changer,
but throughout this video it'll show we have a component where we design, we manufacture
and then we build scientific capabilities.
So in that instance it was the Million Year Ice Core
and then you can see the ice core in operation.
To the end product of where the scientists
have the valuable data. Here's the design of bespoke containerised laboratories for Nuyina.
The wet well that we've already mentioned about.
I should mention, with the wet well also is that that allows continuous operation on the vessel.
The vessel doesn't have to stop.
Here we have some Marine Science Engineers developing end-of-wire packages, so we have four.
Electro-optical cables on Nuyina with dedicated packages that we can plug onto those.
A suite of acousticians and acoustics. This was on the recent first voyage south, a 4 x 4 metre moon pool,
one of the largest moon pools on the scientific platform,
and the use of AUVs. That's under the Aurora Australis.
We've previously seen this but we've had acoustic moorings being tested.
And I believe this summer's Johnny's video footage showing the use of ROVs, again down south.
And there's Artemis being installed in Davis station, the use of wind power.
We have our monitoring program for our nest cameras and here's some exciting
future technologies under consideration.
So we have our un-crewed service vessels
so this is known technology.
It has already occurred down south.
And they can withstand very harsh conditions that we'll see in a moment.
I believe that's a cyclone, a hurricane off Florida,
and also the use of un-crewed aerial systems, which will be certainly a
game-changer in relation to the breadth and the amount of data that can be obtained.
Such an exciting time to be working for the Australian Antarctic Division,
and especially in relation to where science is heading,
so we're very privileged to play an integral role in moving forward, so thank you.