Deakin’s Saied Nahavandi receives defence innovation award

THE founding director of Geelong’s Institute for Intelligent Systems Research and Innovation (IISRI), Professor Saeid Nahavandi, has been named Innovator of the Year in the 2021 Australian Defence Industry Awards.

Since joining Deakin University in 1998, Prof. Nahavandi has continued his work at the pinnacle of AI, robotic and haptic research, pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved in areas such as autonomous robots and vehicles, and brain-computer interface technology.

The Defence Connect Australian Defence Industry Awards celebrate the excellence of the defence sector’s most successful professionals.

Prof. Nahavandi said he was thrilled to continue to boost Australia’s defence industry at IISRI, which is based at Deakin’s Waurn Ponds campus.

“I am delighted to contribute to Australia’s sovereign capabilities and honoured to receive this award from Defence Connect,” he said.

Among his recent research achievements, Prof. Nahavandi is particularly proud of his research innovation on AI-powered leader-follower convoy of autonomous vehicles with optimal path planning and obstacle avoidance capabilities.

This project builds on Deakin’s partnership with the Australian Defence Force since 2006.

Prof. Nahavandi and his colleagues have designed, developed, and implemented a platform-agnostic autonomous leader-follower capability with obstacle avoidance using the in-service HX40M military vehicles.

Through a co-design process with the Australian Army, IISRI has realised an autonomous “bolt-on pack” technology.

The “vehicle agnostic” solution comprises AI-based robotic controllers and smart sensing systems that can be retroactively fitted to a range of existing heavy vehicles, including trucks, transporters, tanks, or bulldozers, turning them into autonomous vehicles.

The research solution is also applicable to non-defence sectors, such as transportation and logistics, mining and agriculture, bringing immense potential value to the Australian economy.

The team also won a 2021 Essington Lewis Award, presented by the Australian Defence Magazine, for this research.

“For a convoy of autonomous vehicles to traverse unstructured, rough terrain, such as river beds and creeks, is far more challenging than cruising around on a highway or in urban areas,” Prof. Nahavandi said.

“Our innovation overcomes these challenges giving enormous capability and capacity for autonomous vehicles to operate in remote and contested environments.”

In a career spanning more than 30 years as an academic, researcher, and engineer, this latest honour followed multiple successes in 2021 for Prof. Nahavandi, being named both Australian Space Researcher of the Year by Space Connect and Victorian Professional Engineer of the Year by Engineers Australia.