The systems developed by universities and private companies are fighting it
out in the Grand Challenge competition staged by Britain's Ministry of
Defence.  Reuters Technology Correspondent Matt Cowan reports. 


  Britain's Ministry of Defence is staging a Grand Challenge to some of the
nation's best and brightest minds with the aim of opening up the UK security
market to new suppliers and investors.
  The challenge is this - to create a system with a high degree of autonomy
that can detect, identify, locate and report a comprehensive range of military
threats in an urban environment.
  And this is what the future war technology may look like - mini
helicopters that beam back images to military personnel equipped with virtual
reality glasses.

SOUNDBITE: Joe Barnard, Owner, Barnard Microsystems saying (English):
"We can then go closer in, further out, up, down."

  A swarm of Micro Aerial Vehicles with high definition cameras to gather
intelligence.
  And then there's this little guy to identify threats at ground level.

SOUNDBITE: Stephen Crampton, CEO, Swarm Systems saying (English):
"They're aerial robots.  They decide what they're going to do given an
order."

  Casting a keen eye over these various technologies is the new Chief
Scientific Advisor to the Ministry of Defence Mark Welland.

SOUNDBITE: Mark Welland, Chief Scientific Advisor, Ministry of Defence
saying (English):
"I'm incredibly impressed.  I'm impressed for two reasons.  For one,
that there's so many ways of doing this.  You might think you want to identify
a threat in an urban environment.  You might think that there's just one way
you choose to do that, but in fact there are an incredible variety of ways and
different approaches so one approach from the soldier's perspective and one
approach from a very technologically based perspective."

  The finalists in the Grand Challenge will converge on a place called
Copedown Hill for a final showdown in late August.  In this English village
specially built by the military for urban warfare training, the aerial and
ground vehicles will compete to identify threats such as marksmen, roadside
bombs and armed militia.  The winning team will receive a trophy made from the
metal of Britain's ultimate wartime design classic - the Spitfire.
  Matt Cowan, Reuters.