Sentient Vision Systems is an Australian company headquartered in

Port Melbourne Port Melbourne is an inner-city List of Melbourne suburbs, suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, south-west of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the Cities of ...

, that produces automated

object detection Object detection is a computer technology related to computer vision and image processing that deals with detecting instances of semantic objects of a certain class (such as humans, buildings, or cars) in digital images and videos. Well-researched ...

solutions for video from aircraft and surface sensors used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR),

search and rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...

, and

law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term ...

. Sentient's solutions use

computer vision Computer vision is an Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate t ...

software to detect and track objects of interest in full motion video (FMV), both

electro-optic Electro–optics is a branch of electrical engineering, electronic engineering, materials science, and material physics involving components, electronic devices such as lasers, laser diodes, LEDs, waveguides, etc. which operate by the p ...

(EO) and

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from aroun ...

(IR) for land and maritime environments. Sentient Vision Systems is a private company.

History

Sentient Vision Systems was founded by Dr Paul Boxer in 2004 to develop computer vision solutions with a focus on moving target indication (MTI) in video. In 2006, Australia's

Defence Science and Technology Organisation The Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG) is part of the Australian Department of Defence dedicated to providing science and technology support to safeguard Australia and its national interests. The agency's name was changed from Defenc ...

(DSTO) awarded Sentient a Capability and Technology Demonstrator (CTD) program which supported development and demonstration of the Kestrel Land MTI solution. A CTD extension and then support from Commercialisation Australia enabled further development and commercialisation, including Kestrel Maritime, an object detection solution for maritime environments. Kestrel has been integrated on a range of manned and unmanned aircraft including the

Wasp A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. Th ...

Raven A raven is any of several larger-bodied bird species of the genus ''Corvus''. These species do not form a single taxonomic group within the genus. There is no consistent distinction between "crows" and "ravens", common names which are assigned ...

and Puma UAS's,

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

Firescout,

P3 Orion The Lockheed P-3 Orion is a four-engined, turboprop anti-submarine and maritime surveillance aircraft developed for the United States Navy and introduced in the 1960s. Lockheed based it on the L-188 Electra commercial airliner.Royal Australian Navy The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is the principal naval force of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The professional head of the RAN is Chief of Navy (CN) Vice Admiral Mark Hammond AM, RAN. CN is also jointly responsible to the Minister of ...

(RAN) on a

ScanEagle The Boeing Insitu ScanEagle is a small, long-endurance, low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) built by Insitu, a subsidiary of Boeing, and is used for reconnaissance. The ScanEagle was designed by Insitu based on the Insitu SeaScan, a c ...

UAS and is in service with the

Australian Maritime Safety Authority Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) is an Australian statutory authority responsible for the regulation and safety oversight of Australia's shipping fleet and management of Australia's international maritime obligations. The authority ...

(AMSA) for search and rescue. In 2016, Australia's Defence Minister,

Christopher Pyne Christopher Maurice Pyne (born 13 August 1967) is a retired Australian politician. As a member of the Liberal Party, he held several ministerial positions in the Howard, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments, and served as a member of p ...

MP, congratulated Sentient for deployment of over 1,000 Kestrel systems worldwide. Sentient was also referenced in the Australian Governments 2016 Defence Industry Policy Statement In June 2017, The Australian government announced a $100m contract to supply the Army with Wasp AE small UAV's including Sentient's Kestrel.

References

{{reflist Technology companies of Australia Surveillance