Gippsland is a long way from the jungles of Africa.
But it was in Churchill, a town of less than 5,000 in eastern Victoria, that an award-winning robot was invented to help save animals threatened by illegal poachers.
Key points:
- A new four-wheeled robot invented in East Gippsland is winning innovation awards
- Dubbed GUS, the surveillance robot can help detect illegal poachers and enemy soldiers in hostile environments.
- GUS is expected to deploy for its first mission to West Africa later this year.
Poaching specialist and Army veteran Luke Townsend developed the idea as a way to replace park rangers forced to monitor poachers in dangerous environments.
The four-wheeled robot is nicknamed the GUS (Unmanned Ground System) and is armed with state-of-the-art cameras, a drone and artificial intelligence-guided microphones to pick up human sounds.
The robot is essentially a scout and is not designed to interact with poachers.
“It’s an unmanned lookout, so you can drop it anywhere in the world and it will send you warnings about what’s going on there,” Townsend said.
military use
Mr Townsend, who grew up in the Latrobe Valley, developed the idea during time spent overseas as an Army Captain with the Australian and British Armies.
“When I was in East Timor, we would do cleanup patrols… and I started to think maybe we could do it remotely without having to go out and do it,” he said.
“The status quo is that soldiers and rangers die all the time just trying to do their jobs.
“The purpose of GUS is that the first point of contact is between the enemy and a robot, not between the enemy and one of our guys.”
GUS is also uniquely qualified to deal with tough environments and adverse conditions.
Townsend said GUS required just 10 liters of gasoline to stay in one location for a month, a significant difference from a patrol team that needs food, water and rest.
Helping GUS come to life
Townsend took his idea to Churchill Federation University, where Gayan Kahandawa, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mechatronics, helped bring GUS to life.
“With AI techniques, we can train it to recognize sight or sounds like humans…with very high accuracy,” Dr. Kahandawa said.
The robot recently won an innovation award at an international defense exhibition in Brisbane, and the Australian military is also interested in what GUS can do.
“They think this is going to save the life of the army,” said Dr. Kahadawa.
“It’s a pretty good feeling for us, actually, to have the recognition from the defense and from African Parks.”
PhD student Hasitha Hewawasam also helped with coding and software development at GUS while completing her studies.
“There are some AI parts that we have in GUS that help detect certain things, I’m not sure we can talk about that yet, but it’s pretty high-tech stuff,” he said.
“When we started building it, we never thought we would win these awards and all these things.
“Now, it’s going to help save lives, which is really cool.”
Robot could be a ‘lifesaver’
Future GUS models will be armed with bulletproof armor, but it’s also designed to be cheap and expendable should it fall into enemy hands.
The developers hope that an improved GUS model can be deployed on its first mission in Benin by March 2023.
Townsend said the robot could be a lifesaver.
“What made this seem more urgent is what is happening in West Africa: there have been rangers killed in fixed positions waiting to spot poachers, soldiers killed waiting to spot al Qaeda militants crossing the borders,” he said.
“This robot gives them that early warning — it’s alerting them to what’s about to happen.”
