AUKUS shares results of inaugural Electronic Warfare Challenge
LONDON — Distributed Spectrum Inc., headquartered in New York City, was tapped to deliver advanced sensing to identify Indo-Pacific threats as the U.S.-based winner of the first-ever AUKUS Electronic Warfare Challenge, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced Thursday.
During the trilateral security partnership’s third ministerial meet-up unfolding in London this week, defense leadership from each of the participating nations unveiled the companies from their respective hubs who came out on top of this new innovation contest. The pursuit was conducted by and with the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit.
Distributed Spectrum was awarded $150,000 in recognition of its radio frequency (RF) sensing platform, which is designed to help users better grasp adversarial activities from both operator and analyst levels.
The company was born out of a hackathon put on three years ago by DIU’s National Security Innovation Network (NSIN). Since then, it has secured more than $1.5 million in Defense Department contracts for its product.
“During the AUKUS EW Challenge, the Distributed Spectrum team thought through how we would apply our attritable sensing capability to monitor large regions of the Pacific,” the company’s CEO Alex Wulff said in a statement to DefenseScoop.
“This challenge helped us develop new concepts for both deploying our sensing capability and also aggregating data from hundreds or thousands of sensors deployed in the field,” Wulff added.
During a joint press briefing with his counterparts on Thursday, Austin said the leading companies from all three countries offer solutions to complex challenges associated with electronic warfare, targeting and protection.
The U.S. winner “is postured to provide critical capabilities which will strengthen AUKUS,” he said.
DIU, Australia’s Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA) and the United Kingdom’s Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) collectively launched this EW challenge in March as part of AUKUS Pillar 2.
Altogether across all three nations, 173 qualified companies applied to participate.
Other finalists from the U.S. included Adaptive Dynamics Inc., Mithril Technologies Inc., Gambit Defense, and DataShapes AI.
Winners from Australia included Advanced Design Technology Pty Ltd, Inovor Technologies Pty Ltd and Penten Pty Ltd. Winners from the U.K. included Amiosec Ltd, University of Liverpool, Roke Manor Research Ltd and Autonomous Devices Ltd.
“The selection of these companies demonstrates the important contributions that our trilateral commercial sectors and innovation bases can make in addressing critical operational requirements,” officials at the ministerial said in a joint communique.
“The EW Challenge is an exciting first step in deepening partnerships with some of our closest allies, creating networks across our commercial and tech sectors, and building resilience across our industrial bases and supply chains,” DIU Director Doug Beck said in a statement.
“DIU is proud to contribute to these critical efforts with our AUKUS partners in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Beck said in a subsequent statement sent to DefenseScoop. “The solutions identified from each country will help address important parts of the EW challenge we all face, and will help us continue to build momentum together toward a stronger international innovation base that leverages the best technology across all of our countries, and that helps us meet our shared operational and strategic requirements, together.”
Senior defense officials did not immediately confirm the topic of the next AUKUS challenge.
Updated on Sept. 27, 2024, at 6:45 PM: This story has been updated to include additional comments from DIU Director Doug Beck.
