Defence Science and Technology Group

So for reasons that we discussed in episode 12 of season one, the initial assumption was that the plane hit very close to the seventh arc.

So a more urgent question was where along the arc did that all happen? And a team from the Australian government body called the Defense Science and Technology Group used a process called Bayesian inference to generate a probability heat map of where the plane might have gone, based almost entirely at that stage on the BTO data.

This is a version of that heat map that they came up with.

The accompanying caption says, quote, the green line outlines the main area of interest representing 90% of the probability distribution.

And I should say, Dave, this is our last episode of the AdStar podcast series.

David was one of the keynote speakers at the AdStar Summit last month, held by our own Defence Department's Defence Science and Technology Group.

And they hosted us, of course, as podcast partners.

There's a

In terms of the quantum computing as well, when we talk about that, we see a lot of that in defense.

It's become very much a talking point with the DSTG.

What are we talking about in computing as well?

When we talk about computing, we usually use it as that leverage to really focus people on the main problem that we're talking about at Space CoLab.

Also, Tanya Munro, Australia's Chief Defence Scientist.

Professor Munro, she just talks through the kind of post-AdStar, AdStar being the Defence Science and Technology Group's biennial conference.

And we've had a bunch of strategies around defence industry development, the National Defence Strategy and the Science and Technology Strategy.

She kind of talks through and puts that all into context.

in

DSTG play a very particular role of bridging knowledge to reality.

And the key, though, is we're never going to be making more than a few of any product.

We need to be working with industry to establish that manufacturing capability.

Its predecessors was the Joint Intelligence Organization, and prior to that was the Joint Intelligence Bureau.

I have a very strong suspicion that the Defense Intelligence Organization are having back-channel conversations with the United States, namely ARO, on this topic, when publicly, the face of the conversation Australia, the Chief of Air Force, the current Air Marshal, Stephen Chappell, and the Head of Australia's Defense, Science and Technology Group, Professor Tanya Monro, they're the two individuals that are required to front up- In a parliamentary hearing at Senate estimates and answer questions before senators, but they're not necessarily kept in the know from those that are having these, you know, classified briefings and conversations with AARO behind the scenes, courtesy of the Defense Intelligences Or- Defense Intelligence Organization.

So there is, there's a public persona, there's a public face, and there's the behind closed doors conversation, which is engaged with AARO.

But to the extent on the legacy program, I'm, I have no information regarding Australia's knowledge of or ongoing involvement in conversations around legacy program.

Yeah, look, For us, Australia, here, I think it's our bright minds that we can bring to this.

We've shown some amazing things across our history and some amazing things have come out of Defence Science and Technology Group here and we've contributed a lot through that.

that space.

We've heard here just this morning from other researchers like Simon Lucey from the Australian Institute of Machine Learning about areas where Australia can contribute to this space, not to outspend or outbuild what other nations might be doing, but to look at specific areas in the research where we might be able to really make a step change of how how AI models are being either developed or used, perhaps the efficiency around these sorts of things.