Q & A: Matthew Jones, CEO of EOS Defence Systems

Liam Garman: I think at the moment, the defence industry and the global defence ecosystem is in a very interesting time at the moment with some global turmoil. Across to the north in Europe, there are no shortage of rumours abound about what's happening in Ukraine and Russia, and no shortage of military and defence deals that are going on with some key major players across Europe and across the United States.

But if you want to learn more about that, please tune into our podcast from last week where we do a deep dive into the crisis that's emerging up there. But today we're going... We're coming, I should say, closer back home and we're looking at one of our amazing home grown defence companies, EOS. Today, I'm joined by Matthew Jones who has been named the new CEO of EOS Defence Systems Australia. I shouldn't say new, maybe last month, I still think probably quite new.

Matthew Jones: That's right.

Liam Garman: And you are the new appointee for EOS Defence Systems and you formally served as General Manager for Land C4I. Matthew, how are you today?

Matthew Jones: I'm good. I'm good. Thanks for having me on.

Liam Garman: Oh, thank you for joining us. And I think it's a very interesting time for the company. You've got a lot on your plate at the moment. I think most of our readers would agree that EOS does a little bit of everything. You've got so many cool things at the moment and we'll touch on them. You've got C4I, the new T2000 turrets. You've got the Titanus Counter UAS systems. You've got a lot of things going on at the moment. We will touch on them all because I know our listeners would love to hear about it. But as the new CEO, what is on the horizon? What exciting things do you have on the plan for the future at EOS Defence Systems?

Matthew Jones: Well, I think many people understand that EOS for a number of years has been a leader in the remote weapons station market with the R400. It doesn't garner that much attention, but the remote weapon station business is going very well. And we're expanding the range of products available in that area with the R150, which is the lighter weight version of the remote weapon station. And a heavier weight version, the R800, which will take a Mk44 30 millimetre long cannon. So there's a lot of interest at the moment in the remote weapons station family capability. And I think if you cast forward a decade into the future, you'll see increasing use of these types of weapon systems as countries issue autonomous and unmanned ground systems, you need remote weapons stations. And they're a lightweight, highly effective, high fire power solution and very competitive in terms to price compared to more traditional turrets and human operated systems.

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So that's EOSs core business. And as you've already flagged, we're expanding the range of products and we've led the Australian industry team in the C4 EDGE programme, delivering sovereign C4I solution or demonstration capability to the Australian Army. That went off very successfully at the end of last year. And building off of our accuracy in the remote weapons station with our hard kill products. We've further developed the Titanus Counter UAS capability, which is mobile and fixed site counter UAV or counter UAS engagement system detect, track, locate and engage capability. Which embedded within that is a new programme, which hasn't attracted a huge amount of attention, but building off of EOS's laser pedigree and laser development pedigree, is Australia's first indigenous directed energy effector system. And will be in field trials in the next two weeks in Canberra area, putting some power through the beam director against some UAV targets, which is a very exciting development of new capability here at EOS.

Liam Garman: That's brilliant. Yeah, you guys do touch on almost everything. I think every week there's a new subsidiary popping up. Whether it's in the radar solutions with EM solutions. You've got your subsidiary in the U.S. space. It's growing and it's very exciting to have a lot of this knowledge and this expertise domiciled in Australia.

Now the first thing, Matt, that I want to ask you about is the new T2000 turret. So you're working with this turret as part of the team Redback LAND 400 Phase 3 bid. And we published a few stories on this on Defence Connect and I think it's very exciting. I know the readers were very excited about it as well. It did remarkably well and there are several different variants of the turrets. Some are more weighted to the anti-autonomous systems. Some are more traditional turrets. And they're designed to work in tandem with one another. Can you talk us through the new exciting T2000 project?

Matthew Jones: I mean, T2000s it's not EOS's first foray into turrets. We have a separate turret programme, which people aren't particularly aware of through our subsidiary company in Singapore. But T2000s been targeted specifically at LAND 400 and partnered with Hanwha for the LAND 400 Phase 3 programme. It's performed extremely well in the RMA activities as we understand it. And it's an impressive capability that's been locally developed and supported.

So one of the exciting features of T2000 really is the sovereign ecosystem we've developed around the development of that particular capability. So some of the more recent announcements around our range facility that we've established in partnership with Lightforce out in western New South Wales gives Australia, for the first time, a commercial weapon system development capability for weapon systems of the size and capability and calibre of a T2000. So being able to fire a 30 millimetre cannon and at moving targets in a commercial facility, this homegrown capability against Australian developed target systems, using Australian IP and an Australian turret, is a first. And this is one of the, I think, unique features we can offer around T2000 is that the ability to locally manufacture, support and further develop that capability with our Australian partners to meet current and future needs of the customer set, in particular for LAND 400 Phase 3. So, I mean, we're quietly confident that will go our way, but I guess we'll wait and see on the government decision with regard to that capability.

But the turret itself for 400 Phase 3 is a manned turret, but that turret can also be unmanned. And we were also, on our roadmap for the development of the direct and energy system I was talking about previously, looking at how we can incorporate the DE technology, so direct energy laser effected technology, into the T2000 architecture. Which would be an exciting development over the next few years.

So T2000 are an exciting extension beyond our remote weapon system product range, but I think what's really important to note, and is important for 400 Phase 3 is that the architecture is the same as our remote weapons stations. The technology is very much based on our R400, or our remote weapons systems architecture. And the look and feel is exactly the same as what we use in our remote weapons stations. Which significantly enhances the ease of training for the operators as they move from, be that mechanised to mounted, or even UGV operated remote weapons stations. They get the same look and feel from end to end from an infantry point of view and I think that's one of our key benefits for the T2000.

We partnered with the Northrop Grumman Mk44 S cannon. And having our principle ally as a supplier of the cannon and the ammunition for T2000 is very important about leveraging their significant investment in ammunition technology and development. Which we have had a long, long experience with around remote weapons stations and the short 30 millimetre cannon we use in the R400 for roles such as things like counter UAS proximity ammunition and various ammunition technologies. So we're excited by T2000 and the opportunity that creates for EOS, and growing into that higher end capability off the back of a 400 Phase 3 win with Hanwha.

Liam Garman: So the architecture you mentioned is the same as architecture used in the past. So, it's quite a mature system and a lot of those potential issues that you would get when prototyping, they've already been ironed out. They've already been fleshed out.

Matthew Jones: Yeah, no. So, I'm not sure if listeners would be fully aware that EOS, as part of the RMA activity, actually conducted a range of field firing events at our Tongo commercial development range with the T2000 on the Redback with the Commonwealth. So the T2000 isn't just a concept or an idea, it's real. And it's been field fired on our commercial facility up in Tongo with the Commonwealth in observation, off the Redback platform. So it is a maturing capability. The architecture and the approach is very much an extension of the already TRL9 and remote weapon systems that Army already operate, the R400s and that we successfully export around the world at the moment. And it is something that provides a real solid basis to grow a medium weight turret capability off of going forward into the global market. So T2000 is an exciting prospect for EOS.

Liam Garman: And you mentioned before that the modern battle space is changing, and I think we all agree with that. I was at Land Forces mid-last year, and it seems that everything is now autonomous in one way or another. Or perhaps autonomous isn't the best way to put it, but uncrewed, unmanned, everything is moving that direction. Whether it's ground based vehicles, air vehicles, which makes the directed energy weapon very interesting. And I know our readers really loved the announcement of the direct energy variant last year. And I know EOS came out with a very cool video explaining it. But for those who haven't seen the video explaining the direct energy turret, would you be able to explain how that works?

Matthew Jones: So the DE turret is, I guess, on our roadmap for development of the DE system. The current capability is maturing, and we've started with the static deployment of a DE capability for FOB based protection. And our roadmap is seeing that technology reduced in size, increased in power, and then ruggedized for the mobile employment of vehicle platforms.

Now, the turret version of a DE capability will come in the next few years. But fundamentally what we're talking about here, and it's important to understand that all of our weapon systems, so all our remote weapon systems, as well as the turret and now the DE capability, are all sufficiently accurate and able to defeat, not just ground targets, but also air targets.

So the DE system will be principally employed against UAVs at shorter and longer ranges. It's a networked capability that can work in conjunction with closed in support from the traditional R400 or R150 deployments on vehicle platforms to engage a range of UAV targets. Because it is a high energy laser, you can look at effects against UAVs at longer ranges, where you're not necessarily trying to destroy the UAV, but you can certainly degrade the ISR performance, which is what UAVs have traditionally been used for. But we've seen in more recent times in Nagorno-Karabakh and other places where loitering munitions or weaponized commercial UAV platforms have been turned into flying bombs that can then go after heavy armour another platforms.

So our vision for the T2000-DE, is that it provides area coverage over something like a battle group or a combat team. And enables the combat team to carry out its normal mission but with the security protection afforded to it by the laser effector that can engage at longer ranges to blind and deny ISR coverage from UAVs. But at shorter ranges, and we're still talking multiple kilometres, can actually engage and destroy UAVs.

There are some real advantages to direct energy over traditional kinetic rounds. Mainly the ability if you can see a target and track the target, then you can engage it with laser energy. Some of the challenges with traditional kinetic effectors is that you have a ballistic effect that you have to take into account. You have to lead the target. And so high speed targets are really difficult to engage with traditional proximity rounds, or even traditional bullets, you need to fire a lot of them to get the effect. Whereas laser energy, if you can see and track the target, you can put that energy onto the threat and then destroy it. And that's where DE compliments the traditional ground based feet offence and counter UAS capabilities that we're now seeing deployed around the traps. So we see this as part of a network solution that would be deployed in support of a combat team to give it that integrated and local capability to provide that coverage.

Liam Garman: And this one I love what you touched on before about the technology is moving in such a way that even if the drone is out of a kill zone, because it's too far away, that these lasers perhaps now, or in time, you could use it to just spoof the drone to blind it and essentially make it useless on the battle field anyway. One other thing I really loved, which I think I read on one of the releases about the system, and correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the benefits of DE over traditional turrets is the reduced need for resupply if you use all of your rounds, is that correct?

Matthew Jones: Yeah. No, that's exactly right. So as long as you can keep power up to the system, you don't have that resupply challenge. There's not a lot of moving parts in a laser system, so it is a completely different type of effector. And we're not saying that this would replace traditional kinetic effectors. Instead, it's actually complimentary to that capability. And the capability we're developing is transitioning from traditional generator based powered solution to a battery powered solution. And that battery powered solution will give you enough power to run more than a hundred engagements over a number of hours. And then if you bring in auxiliary power units and power off of the vehicle, it really means that you, so as a vehicle is running, you can power the DE capability. So we can go to silent operations for a full day, no power running on the system, just running off of batteries.

So that resupply problem, that securing ammunition, global supply chain exposure, all of that stuff that normally comes with when you're trying to move high explosives around the battlefield, resupplying ammunition goes away when you bring directed energy into the capability set. And so we see that as a very important emerging technology for ground combat forces, but increasingly you're going to see it in maritime and air as well. And EOS is looking at those things at the moment, but fundamentally at the moment, it's ground based capability that we're focused on.

Liam Garman: And it's certainly an emerging weapon system, which I think will definitely define the battlefield of the future. But we're going to go for a quick break. And when we're back, we're going to be talking about the C4 EDGE consortium. We'll be back in just a moment.

And we're back. And I'm joined by Matthew Jones, Chief Executive Officer of EOS Defence Systems. And for those who were listening before the break, we just had a quick rundown of the new T2000 turret and the directed energy weapon system, which is integrated into team Redback for the LAND 400 Phase 3 bid. But that is not the only big news coming out of the company at the moment. For those of you who read DefenceNet quite often you would've seen last year, at the end of last year, there was a lot of coverage over the C4 EDGE consortium, which is an EOS led consortium to build a sovereign tactical communications industry in Australia.

And for those who are regular readers, we all know how important a sovereign industry is in Australia, especially proven by the recent supply chain disruptions throughout the COVID pandemic. There's never been a more important time to have a building manufacturing sector, and also knowledge and expertise base, domiciled in Australia. So, Matt, this is a $35 million initiative, which is brought together 31 Australian SMEs. Can you walk us through the C4 EDGE consortium? And I think you guys had a few wins at the end of last year as well.

Matthew Jones: So C4 EDGE has been a very exciting programme that EOS has been working on with Australian industry partners. Now, what certainly concluded at the end of last year, but over an 18 month period, we took what was a very small team, but grew that team into 31 by the end of the programme, to demonstrate to the Australian Army, and defence in general, what Australian industry could offer in the C4 capability space to meet their emerging and current communications and command and control application needs in the future.

And we were able to bring that team from across the country. We had all states and territories represented apart from the Northern Territory in the consortium, in the team, for the demonstration activity. Which we ran a field demonstration for army in December, followed by, I guess, an industry showcase in [Brussel 00:18:32] offices, where all the companies were able to showcase the equipment that they developed under the C4 EDGE programme, but also some of their other products to Army in general about really showing off what it is they could do. And we had a number of companies that couldn't make it because of COVID and travel restrictions, but we ran a mini showcase event in Brisbane for those Brisbane based companies that couldn't get down. Which was also well supported by Army and industry has led to a range of opportunities.

So C4 EDGE really was a way for the Australian C4 industry to really showcase to army what's the art of a possible. It isn't a product as such. It was a demonstration and quite technical demonstration of capability, not just in terms of hardware, but software. We demonstrated things like command and control applications, and networking applications, communication security. One of the real challenges for Australian industry for a long time is sufficiently secure or accredited sovereign cryptographic systems. We're able to showcase that with Penten as our partner.

The development of sovereign wave forms, radios, computers, ancillaries, microphones, headsets, we built Australia's very first Australian GVA qualified smart computing device. That's something that had been, for a number of years, people said couldn't be done in Australia, but we were able to do that over the 12 month period with APC technology in South Australia, UGV Systems, and then a range of service providers that obviously helped in the engineering and documentation.

So this wasn't just simply a technical demonstration of capability, but it was design and engineered. And we went through the full engineering process to build that integrated demonstration activity in December that we held out at Madura. Which from all reports back from the Commonwealth and from the Australian Army that they supported was seen as very, very successful.

Liam Garman: And you mentioned that it's not a product per se. There are multiple products that were on display and showcased throughout the event.

Matthew Jones: Yes.

Liam Garman: So were they individual companies, individual SMEs, that were part of the consortium showcasing their individual products? Or were the ones that were made, or the different systems, were they a collaboration between the SMEs?

Matthew Jones: So there was a mixture of both. So Australia has some very mature radio manufacturers that export globally at the moment, but have not been successful in sales to the ADF. And so they had TRL9 mature products. But there were a number of other areas where we needed to invest in the glue, the integration activity, that would see modifications to either existing products or the creation of new products. That meant that we could actually offer the Commonwealth in that demonstration an integrated solution. So not a demonstration of 31 different products from 31 different companies, but actually one working command and control communications solution that Army could in theory, field and deploy to support a combat team operation as part of a battle group.

And that included things like mobile satellite on to move, mesh radio networks, HF beyond line-of-site radio networks. But really the command and control applications to actually visualise people manoeuvring on the battlefield. The ability to integrate weapon systems into your command application. And be able to create targets into your command application from your weapon system, so weapon integrated effects. A number of those things had to be created from scratch. Whereas other things we had existing products and therefore there was more about integration.

So the actual capability that we fielded was a demonstration of an integrated solution utilising technology from 31 different industry partners. Now, is that a product ready to be procured by the Commonwealth? Fundamentally, no. It was a demonstration of a technological solution. We're now looking to work with Defence on the transition of the demonstration technology into a product solution that could be acquired by the Commonwealth going forward under a range of different programmes, working with the team under C4 EDGE.

Liam Garman: Technologically speaking, what is the future for C4 in the modern combat battle space? And I know that's quite broad. I was looking overseas, and I find this quite interesting looking overseas and the conflict going on in Ukraine. And what they found with a lot of their C4 is that the radio and the equipment that they're using are too loud, they give out too much of a signal and now they've moved back to just laying lines to relay comms from their FOBs, just through cord.

What is the future in your opinion of C4? Because it seems one of those things that you can't rely on pen and paper. If you're a commander, you can't have your commander control relying on pen and paper, but at the same time, sometimes overly sophisticated structures can be to the detriment of especially clandestine teams operating in a covert environment. From what you've learned, what is the future of C4?

Matthew Jones: So from my point of view, and this is one of the motivating factors behind why the Australian Army supported the technology demonstration we proposed to them originally is that, you need agility in the C4 system. You need the ability, the flexibility, to evolve and change the technology that you're using in timeframes of months, not years or decades. And the C4 solutions that Army has procured in the past run under the traditional project management approach that we've seen big major defence projects have been run under for any number of years. Means that you're talking about specifying, designing, and then delivering a solution. It takes five years to go through that process. That's two generations in C4 technology. So you're already behind the eight ball when you take delivery of your first piece of equipment under a traditional defence acquisition model.

And the benefit here under C4 EDGE is you have a sovereign local industry that is agile, globally competitive, because each one of these companies all exists and were successfully exporting their technology all around the world. It just wasn't being employed in the ADF. But because we have this range of companies, we have that agility and flexibility. It's really about the organisation and the architecture that allows you to continually evolve and grow.

So in a situation in the Ukraine where you're sitting up on a border for an extended period of time, and someone's always listening and working out a way to defeat your system, you want avoid that exposure as much as possible. Hence, why they go to line based solutions.

But if you can continue to grow and evolve, adopt new wave forms, bring in new encryption technology, continually evolve the solution every six or 12 months, which is arguably what we could achieve under the C4 EDGE programme. All of a sudden it makes the threat team find it much harder to exploit and defeat your system because it's always changing. It's always evolving and, and developing. And we think that's one of the key advantages of what C4 EDGE can actually do, is it goes to the heart of your exact question is, what's the future of C4? And it's not a system you define and describe over a 10 year period and then acquire and have for 20 years. It needs to be able to change every year or two years.

And one of the architecting principles that we used in the C4 EDGE programme was adopting open standards, and a hardware open standard that allowed us to change radios, change wave forms, adopt new encryption without necessarily having to redesign a combat vehicle to take a new radio platform. That means you've got agility. That means when you find that you need to step up your encryption, you don't need to replace the whole solution; you replace the encryption. If you want to deploy a new wave form that is harder to exploit, or can't be exploited, can't be seen, can't be detected that you've developed, you can deploy that without having to replace all the hardware and replace all the training systems and retrain all the soldiers. And so that agility in deploying and fielding these types of technology means that you really need to design that into the acquisition approach right up front. Because if you don't, you're never going to get that agility in the end solution.

And one of the points we've tried to make to the Commonwealth is, you're not buying a radio or a C4 solution, you're buying the system that delivers the C4 solution. Because if you don't buy the system that delivers it, you can't evolve and change it. You're stuck with a product. And then that product can't be changed. Unless you run another five year acquisition process, and then it takes another three years to deliver. And that's not good enough when you're in combat and you find you've got a weakness and you need to fix it.

So I think the future in the C4 space is really about faster cycles, looking more at how open source software and applications are deployed, giving commanders more flexibility in terms of the capability that they're actually employing, and the ability to upgrade and evolve the solution without having to replace or rebuild combat platforms, which just take too long to actually do. So, C4 EDGE is, I think, an exemplar of a way to deliver a capability to the Commonwealth that gives them that agility and flexibility and the growth as technology evolves over the next five and 10 years and going forward.

Liam Garman: And if I could take one key takeaway from that, it was what you said earlier about the need to do it in months and not years. Because once you already take delivery of these systems, they're old by that point. And you do need the adaptable agile workforce and knowledge base, expertise base here in Australia, to make improvements and upgrades, perhaps not the best terminology "on the go", but in accordance with the needs of the modern battle space and emerging battle spaces. So we're not fighting the next world with the army that we have. Notionally, we can update the army we have as we're in combat. Yeah.

Matthew Jones: I think that's really important. I think that the traditional way of delivering this type of capability is leveraging overseas suppliers. And what we've seen under COVID, and the stretching of global supply chains around COVID related things but then the impacts on global supply chain, is when you are exposed to that, you're at the beck and call of somebody else's priorities.

What we've showcased here from Australian industry point of view under C4 EDGE is, we can deliver the comparable technology. You're not going backwards. We can offer the same level of capability as you can procure from overseas, but we can do it dynamically and we can leverage Australian industry and Australian supply chains to a point.

And that doesn't mean that we have to be able to build everything locally. But what it means is when there's a supply chain problem like we are currently seeing with chips, is that we have the capacity to design around the problem and use the things that are available as opposed to things that aren't. When you procure a product from an overseas vendor, they don't necessarily have that flexibility to give you a solution to a chip shortage, or something else. And if they're in a foreign country, you've always got question whether you are going to get the priority over that foreign country's needs.

And, hence, why C4 EDGE showcases, I think it's relevant definitely to the Australian C4 system, but it also illustrates what Australian industry can offer in a range of other capability areas if they were given the opportunity. And that doesn't mean that we're not leveraging global supply chains, but we're reducing the risk of exposure to global supply chains because we have the engineering in- house and capability to work around a shortage and find another way forward that arguably a foreign supplier might not necessarily have. Or necessarily want to work around because you got a global product and they don't want to change anything. Because they change anything-

Liam Garman: They don't want the headache.

Matthew Jones: They have to change things for another five or six other countries. And that means they're reluctant to implement the change you want. Whereas, we can offer you a local solution that's tailored to exactly how you want to fight, with Australians that are going to give you a 110% support to meet your needs because we're patriotic and we're here to support the Australian Army or the [crosstalk 00:31:16].

Liam Garman: I think that is, what you said, that demonstrates the critical importance of the EOS led C4 EDGE consortium, just how critical it is to building a stronger and more resilient Australian defence force, Australian Army, by having this expertise and bringing this knowledge base back to Australia.

We're going to go to a quick break. And when we're back, we are going to discuss the new Titanus Counter UAS system. And we'll be back in just a second.

And we're back. I'm joined by Matthew Jones, CEO of EOS Defence Systems Australia. And, already, we've spoken about few of the awesome things that EOS is leading the charge on the T2000 turrets and the C4 EDGE consortium, which is revolutionising Australian C4 sovereign capability. And I think the last thing that I want to question you about, Matthew, because it is so cool and know a lot of our listeners would love to hear about it, is new Titanus Counter UAS system. It was showcased at Land Forces during that period to great fanfare. I know we published a few stories on it on Defence Connect and I've seen the videos, and it is absolutely awesome. Please, can you run us through this brand new, amazing counter UAS system?

Matthew Jones: So thanks for the opportunity there. The Titanus system really is a layered counter UAS capability and it's built out of the mature technology from our remote weapons station. So the accuracy we offer through our remote weapons systems is really an order of magnitude better than anything else in the market. And we've demonstrated a number of times, and I'm pretty sure there's videos on our website actually showing the R400 weapon station and the R150 shooting down UAVs at out to 500 metres just with traditional machine guns. So the machine guns as deployed on our current Bushmasters from an Australian military point of view, but also deployed around the world, we provide sufficient accuracy for ground forces to engage UAVs with the existing remote weapons stations if they can detect them. And then we can track them using our electro-optical sensors.

So Titanus has grown out of that technology. And we've built command and control application integrated third party sensors, so radars, passive EW detection and tracking technologies, the best technologies we can find around the world. Soft kill jamming solutions to defeat the UAVs and then packaged up with our hard kill effectors, we can offer a layered counter UAS solution.

And if you go back to the video we were discussing before with the DE system as part of a combat team, the other part of that video is showcasing the Mk44 cannon system engaging UAVs. And the remote weapons stations that are equipped that are deployed either on the turrets as a commander site or potentially on a eight by eight bit platform or a PMV. Networked using something like C4 EDGE and a shared common operating picture informed by sensing technologies that we've deployed under Titanus. You can now engage those UAVs with the weapon systems that you've already deployed in the combat team.

And I think this is the point of difference between Titanus and some of the more traditional ground based air defence systems, which are deployed as an adjunct to the manoeuvre solution. That's expensive. It requires significantly more training. You need more soldiers to operate those systems. Whereas, we are integrating the Titanus technology into the base remote weapon systems and turret solutions and adding directed energy into that mix. And then using those same technologies that are deployed on those vehicle platforms that you already had, but now to engage UAVs. That means they can be effective against ground targets, but they can also be effective against air targets. Either using machine guns in a traditional sense, or if we have some of the more high end systems like the R400 with the N230LF from Northrop Grumman firing proximity ammunition, we can now shoot at longer ranges, air bursting ammunition, single round hits against UAVs out beyond a kilometre.

So Titanus can offer more traditional FOB based defence using fixed assets, but we also see it evolving into a manoeuvre support capability. And rather than you having to buy more vehicle platforms, establish new technology, new capability, it's really about an upgrade and utilising the technology you've already got, but employing remote weapon systems which we supply. And then feeding that into your command environment and command and control environment, offered with something like C4 EDGE, which enables you to share that situational awareness and then collectively defeat the UAV threat that's operating in your area.

Liam Garman: It's quite integrable into our current weapon systems because you can integrate it with, say, the machine gun on a Bushmaster. You don't need a brand new weapon system on it.

Matthew Jones: No, that's exactly right. So we've provided, certainly in the fielded solution at the moment, a PMV operating an R400 weapon station with the baseline software that's currently deployed. That is accurate enough if you can detect and track a UAV with that electric-optical set, so to actually shoot it down using the R400.

Now, what we've done under Titanus is we've enhanced that effect. We've integrated a small radar onto the front of the remote weapon station. That gives you radar tracking now, as well as electric-optical or visual tracking. And those two together, give you a better tracking solution to detect that UAV platform and then engage it in a traditional sense using the remote weapon station.

So we're very much about leveraging the existing systems that are in traditional manoeuvre force, as opposed to saying, "Here, buy this new shore aid system over here, and now you've got to deploy more soldiers and have a new C2 system and everything else." So we looking to leverage the existing capabilities.

So with some minor upgrades, you can bring a network cannon UAS effect to the modern battlefield using our remote weapons stations, and then addition of additional sensors to the combat team without necessarily requiring a huge amount of additional support or more personnel.

But Titanus also can be bigger than that. So if we're looking at FOBs like we're operating in Uruzgan when we're in Afghanistan and we wanted to provide counter UAS effects to that. Then you may have a permanent installation with remote weapon stations jamming passive detection and tracking that then feeds into the common C2 environment. That might not necessarily be deployed on vehicles because the FOB is always operated, it needs permanent protection, 24/7. But the technology is fundamentally the same. And in a FOB environment, it's actually easier to do because you've got permanent installation of the technology.

Vehicles, it's more challenging because the mobile environment, ruggedization, and obviously the IT or the IP backbone that allows the target information sharing needs to be in place. And that's one of the reasons why we were so motivated to lead the C4 EDGE consortium, is because one of Army's tactical weaknesses at the moment is that IP backbone that allows that target sharing down at the combat team level. And that's where the counter UAS effect is most seriously felt as you were seeing in any number of different videos in the Nagorno-Karabakh battle, you need that capacity at that level to defeat these loiter munitions, and that's what we're very much focused on with Titanus.

Now, you can grow that up into a much bigger system, higher power directed energy effectors protecting air bases, protecting air fields, sea ports, and other things. But then you're talking about a bigger deployment, more effectors, maybe more DE, less traditional machine gun employment. But that is all possible under the scalable approach, or modular approach we've delivered under Titanus.

Liam Garman: So the systems are designed to work together, to integrate with one another to create a more comprehensive map of the battlefield.

Matthew Jones: Very much so. So what we're doing is we're filling in that ISR gap, which was providing situational awareness of the threat environment from a UAS point of view around a combat team. With organic capabilities that you either have in the combat team, or we add some additional technology, and then feeds that into the picture for the combat team commander and all the vehicle commanders and dismount. So if there is a UAV threat... UAV operating in your area, you should be able to get that in your C2 application. And then you should be able to deal with that with organic resources.

Now, certainly the Nano and the Group 1 silence UAVs, and Group 2, we can defeat with the types of weapon systems you'd find in a combat team. And not necessarily new ones. But it's really about being able to give them the targeting information to successfully engage those threats when they're in the area.

And it's important to be able to do it locally, because when you're talking about swarms of UAVs, swarms of loitering munitions, you very quickly run out of air defence missiles because the loitering munitions probably cost a 100th or 100th of that air defence missile to not knock it down. And so Titanus was very much focused on being able to do that in a cost effective and layered way that gives everyone a degree of protection against the types of threats that they're going to face in the modern battlefield.

Liam Garman: And that's, again, what we learnt from Azerbaijan and Armenia just how very cheap systems can cause these huge each operational strategic level attacks. Especially when the Azerbaijani UAS systems destroyed the Armenian air defence, just through-

Matthew Jones: That's right.

Liam Garman: ... a slight of hand with some drones, some slight of hand. And then very cheap systems caused billions of dollars worth of damage, which is exactly what you're saying.

Matthew Jones: Well, I mean, we've got some very significant armoured vehicle programmes happening at the moment. And we need to look at the lessons from contemporary conflict to see what we can do to defeat those emerging threats. You might have a $15 or a $20 million armoured vehicle, but if it's can be defeated by a $10,000 loitering munition, we need to be able to deal with those threats with that sort of technology.

And at the same time, the answer to that isn't necessarily another billion dollar programme necessarily with additional missiles and ground base air defence systems. It needs to be organic to the combat team. And when you try and do that, that means you've got to use the resources they've either got, and they really don't have capacity for more people or more equipment. So Titanus is about a measured response to that emerging threat. And we started from a very strong basis in our remote weapons systems, our tracking technology, our engagement technology offers us the accuracy that nobody else can offer. To be able to defeat those drone threats with machine guns that they are already employing in those particular vehicle platforms.

And it's a little known fact that many of the remote weapon system programmes and acquisitions around the world actually don't have specifications on the accuracy of the engagement system. Because they're replacing a person with either machine gun in their shoulder or leaning out the roof of the top of a vehicle, they've been quite comfortable with fairly inaccurate systems. But EOS brought its space tracking technology to remote weapon systems, which gives us that order of magnitude better accuracy with some of our technology. So our R400 is shooting beyond two kilometres, moving on moving targets and achieving vehicle kills from the back of PMV-like vehicles using the lightweight 30 millimetre cannon. The R150 using the MAG 58 machine gun can achieve headshot accuracy at 900 metres.

Our remote weapon systems enable the cannon and machine guns that are fitted to them to shoot beyond the design specifications of those particular weapon systems. And now we're just leveraging that into engaging UAVs and loitering munitions when they're getting close. And that really defeats that threat if they can't successfully engage platforms because the machine guns and RWSs are defeating and they're getting close enough. So we filled the situation awareness gap of where are the targets, and then we let our lethal effectors or non-lethal effectors either jam them or destroy them when they're getting close enough.

Liam Garman: And what I love is just how integrated all the technology between the T2000 the C4 EDGE and the Titanus. It's employing such similar technology, but just robust knowledge and expertise and putting it in new innovative scenarios to best utilise that expertise. But, Matthew, I think that's probably all we have time for today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Matthew Jones: Thank you. No, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about some of the exciting things we're doing at EOS. And I'll just flag if there's any engineers out there that are keen to work on some of these programmes from Australian point of view, to reach out to us. And we're very keen to talk to you because the skill shortage at the moment, but we've got the exciting programmes. If you actually want to build things, as opposed to do paperwork and stuff, EOS is a company to come and work for. Thank you.

Liam Garman: That's brilliant. Yeah, definitely, definitely do send Matthew a note and I'm sure you'll also have a lot of the vacancies on your website if people want to find it.

Matthew Jones: We do.

Liam Garman: So please do go on there and join up and help build a sovereign defence industry and join an exciting sector in the defence industry sector. But that is all we have time for today, everyone. And thank you so much for joining us and we will be back at the same time next week. Goodbye, everyone.

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