Iatia Ltd (ASX:IAT) Chairman Jim Short welcomed yesterday's announcement by the Minister for Defence, Senator Robert Hill, that Iatia Ltd has been selected as one of the six projects to be funded under the eighth round of the Government's Capability and Technology Demonstrator (CTD) program.

The $2.7 million funding will enable Iatia to conduct a three-year program to develop a highly sophisticated camera that can capture three images simultaneously through a single lens and see through fog, smoke, and dust storms. The Defence Department's Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) will work with Iatia on the project.

Mr Short said the Minister's announcement was a major step forward for the company in both its technological and commercial advancement.

Melbourne-based Iatia is a world leader in image enhancement technology. Its pioneering technology, Quantitative Phase Imaging (QPI), is an advanced form of imaging, with the potential to assist the Australian Defence Forces in the field. It also has important commercial applications in the industrial, scientific and medical fields.

The Australian Army and the Royal Australian Navy supported and sponsored Iatia's CTD application. They saw the potential for the technology to help develop passive surveillance, camouflage negation and improved targeting capabilities including penetrating obscurants such as foliage and clouds.

Iatia Director, Brian Powell, who played a major role in preparing the CTD submission, says "There is a global rethink taking place in defence awareness that is producing new strategic and operational concepts. A major component of this development is intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) systems that find, watch and collect information and provide it to the end users."

"An important element of ISR is stealth and passive surveillance is a major component of stealth warfare. Advances in technologies that allow observation without detection, such as Iatia's, will improve stealth capabilities."

Iatia's technology was invented by internationally renowned scientists from the University of Melbourne's Physics Department, led by Foundation Federation Fellow and recent Victoria Prize winner, Professor Keith Nugent FAA, who is also a Director of Iatia and chairs its Scientific Advisory Committee.