Arkwright Technologies has won the Defence and Defence-Related Capability category at the InnovationAus 2022 Awards for Excellence for its use of fibre optic sensors to make dangerous environments safer.
The InnovationAus 2022 Awards for Excellence were presented on Thursday night at a gala black-tie dinner at the Cutaway in Sydney’s Barangaroo district.
The Defence and Defence-Related Capability category honoured leading companies operating in one of the most innovative sectors in the country. This category shone a spotlight on some of the best products, services and innovations created through collaborations between defence research and industry.
Arkwright Technologies was born out of just that, with Professor John Arkwright incorporating the company in 2015 and being given full rights to his and his team’s fibre optic sensing research from his time working at the CSIRO.
The company offers customer fibre optic sensing for the defence sector, and also for medical and smart infrastructure.
Arkwright Technologies’ patented fibre optic sensor design allows inherently temperature insensitive measurement of pressure and force in a small package, which can also be configured for complex and convoluted environments.
The company’s sensors are used to monitor pressure transients in water and hydraulic pipelines, phase sensitive detection of acoustic signals and for monitoring wave height, amongst other applications.
The federal government awarded Arkwright Technologies more than $1 million to develop a vibration monitoring system for navy vessels that would reduce the vessel’s life cycle operating and sustainment costs.
Its technology brings together photonics and micro-fabrication capabilities into a platform with a wide range of applications.
Since its launch focusing on the medical sector, the company has developed an accelerometer and strain gauges based on the same technology, which are now used in the defence sector.
Veteran-owned tech company WithYouWithMe was highly commended in the category for its use of technology to assist veterans in transitioning from the military into new careers.
The InnovationAus 2022 Awards for Excellence were supported by: Investment NSW, AusIndustry, Australian Computer Society, Technology Council of Australia, Verizon, Mimecast, Microsoft Australia, Digital Health CRC (DHCRC), Agile Digital, METS Ignited, Innovation Manufacturing CRC (IMCRC), CSIRO, and Q-CTRL.
