Free public event on 20 August spotlights Australian-built SLAM autonomy and mapping technology behind heritage preservation, surveying and spatial mapping, on the back of $25 million AUD in new funding and a $3 million AUD grant to develop the company's Cortex AI platform
Brisbane, Australia, August 6, 2026 ― Emesent, the Queensland-founded autonomous mapping and robotics technology company, will open the doors of its Brisbane headquarters on Thursday, 20 August for a National Science Week Open Night, giving students, industry professionals and the public a first-hand look at homegrown technology built to explore and understand the world's most inaccessible places.
Held in partnership with Surveyors Australia, the free event — titled "Surveying the future: the high-value skills and advanced technologies driving the science, cities and businesses of tomorrow" — runs from 5:30pm to 9:00pm at Emesent's Milton office and forms part of Australia's national program of National Science Week activities.
Attendees will see Emesent's Hovermap and GX1 SLAM-based LiDAR systems capture and visualize the environment in real time, with the engineers who built the technology on hand to explain how it works. A dedicated case study session, including "Preserving the World's National Treasures" and “Surveying the Antarctic” will show how Emesent's digital twin technology is being used to protect heritage sites for future generations and map outdoor terrain for scientific learning — just two examples of how the company's autonomous mapping tools are being used for scientific and conservation work around the world.
Interactive exhibit stations throughout the evening will cover surveying, SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) technology, mining safety and public safety applications, with Emesent engineers available to answer questions and discuss career pathways into robotics and spatial technology.
The Open Night comes at a significant moment for Emesent, which has secured $28 million AUD in combined funding and grant support over the past six weeks to accelerate its shift from hardware products to an open autonomy platform business.
In July, Emesent announced $25 million AUD in new funding, comprising a $10 million venture debt facility from the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC) — Australia's sovereign investor in advanced manufacturing — and a $15 million equity round backed by Main Sequence, QIC Ventures, Orion Resource Partners, Hostplus and NGS Super. The capital is being used to scale manufacturing at Emesent's Wacol production facility and to advance two strategic platforms: Cortex AI, the company's onboard autonomy software for GPS-denied and hazardous environments, and Aura, its cloud-based platform for 3D data processing and analytics.
Emesent has also secured a $3 million AUD grant from the Australian Government's Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) program, part of a $7.4 million AUD project delivered with Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and EPE. The grant will fund development of Cortex AI as an open, modular autonomy platform that lets any robot or vehicle navigate and map environments where GPS signals don't reach — underground mines, building interiors, tunnels and contested environments among them.
Emesent CEO Charles Miller said the investment reflected growing confidence in Australian-developed deep technology.
“This investment accelerates everything we’re building at Emesent,” said Miller. “We’re proud to be building this from Queensland, Australia.”
Emesent Chief Technology Officer and co-founder Dr Farid Kendoul said the Cortex AI program was central to the company's ambitions for the technology.
“Our team estimates that the GPS-denied autonomous mapping and navigation industry will reach $14B by 2030,” said Dr Kendoul.
Beyond the chance to see cutting-edge autonomous drone and LiDAR mapping technology up close, National Science Week attendees will get a timely window into a company at an inflection point — one whose Brisbane-built, CSIRO-born technology is now underpinning a growing national conversation about sovereign manufacturing and robotics capability. Reasons to attend include:
What: Emesent National Science Week Open Night, hosted with Surveyors Australia
When: Thursday, 20 August 2026, 5:30pm – 9:00pm
Where: Emesent HQ, 339 Coronation Drive, Milton, Brisbane
How to get there: Easily accessible via public transport, with paid parking stations nearby. See location via Google Maps.
Cost: Free — registration required, spaces are limited
Register: www.emesent.com/event-detail/national-science-week-2026-open-night