TRW CONEKT AND TEAM RISES TO THE 'MOD'S' GRAND CHALLENGE
TRW Conekt has been hand picked to join a team rising up to the Ministry of Defence's (MOD) "Grand Challenge", a national competition to engineer an autonomous robot that can identify, monitor and report military threats in urban areas.
Lord Drayson, Minister of State for Defence Procurement, recently announced the 14 teams who will have just 12 months to carry out an ambitious task to produce their systems comprising of two unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) and an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV). And next summer, at Copehill Down training facility in Wiltshire, the robots will be judged on tackling four common threats including a road-side bomb, marksman from a window, a group of armed military personnel, and an armed vehicle with a rocket launcher.
"Team Stellar" will be lead by Stellar Research & consists of TRW Conekt, Blue Bear Systems Research, Cranfield University, Marshalls Specialist Vehicles and Selex Sensors and Airborne Systems (S&AS)
"Conekt is delighted to be in the Stellar Team competing in the MOD Grand Challenge" explained Alan Jacobs-Cook, Conekt's Electronic Group Systems Manager. "We have a formidable combination of partners, and are excited by the prospect of not only competing in the Challenge itself, but if successful, going on to produce technology that could save lives".
The proposed solution is called SATURN (Sensing & Autonomous Tactical Urban Reconnaissance Network) and will compete for the MOD's R J Mitchell Trophy in recognition of the WWII fighter plane.
TRW Conekt will be providing specialist headway, obstacle and threat sensors for the UGV (provided by Marshalls Specialist Vehicles), combining its skills from the Automotive, Defence & Aerospace Industries.
Blue Bear Systems Research Limited will design both UAV systems and their associated control and avionics systems, and Selex S&AS will be responsible for the overall system integration of the project's ground control station.
Cranfield University will create computer based software for automatic target recognition and be co-ordinating vehicle guidance and execution.
Stellar Research Services will be project managing the team, which is one of 6 on the top tier of projects that the MOD has chosen to fund.
Details about the challenge can be found on www.challenge.mod.uk
More Competition of Ideas information at www.ideas.mod.uk
