Reading University students and staff have scooped a prize in a Ministry of Defence robot challenge that could help save lives in the armed forces.
Nine students from the Cybernetics department, along with academic and support staff, were part of a team called T3 that developed autonomous robots for a gruelling 'threat detection challenge' in a MOD mocked-up village.
The T3 team and their robots
T3 - also comprising of a range of companies as well as students from Bristol University - spent a total of 12 days at Copehill Down in Salisbury Plain braving the mud and competing against ten other teams in the MOD Grand Challenge.
Out of the three prizes available T3 were awarded the Engagement prize for the 'most imaginative use of national talent'.
"We're absolutely over the moon," exclaimed Dr Browne, "the students have put in so much work as part of the T3 team."
Student Chris in the 'forward operating base'
Seven teams, including a rival team from Reading University, went through to the three-day grand finale, in which they had an hour to search 150 m2 of Copehill Down village to identify different types of threat.
These could include improvised explosive devices, snipers, military vehicles and armoured soldiers, with the number of correct identifications being used to rank the teams.
The vehicles needed to move autonomously from a forward operating base and communicate the identity and position of threats back to base.
"It's an extremely difficult and complex task," said Dr Browne.
"Imagine a small Bavarian village in the middle of Salisbury Plain.
"You've got literally a transit van that acts as a forward operating base and you've got to put all your equipment in it, drive to the edge of the village, set off all your autonomous vehicles - your ground vehicles and your helicopters with all the high-tech sensors on - and then you've got to fly over and drive over the terrain looking for soldiers, improvised explosive devices, and snipers."
The autonomous helicopter robot
After the exercise the team return back to base and report on the identified threats, which are then analysed by the MOD Grand Challenge "experts".
"We actually managed to find six out of the 12 threats, which is absolutely fantastic," said Dr Browne. "If you're going into an unknown village or area you want to identify as many threats as possible."
The Reading University M Eng (masters of engineering) students, headed up by Kim Cave-Ayland, developed both the ground vehicles and the helicopters.
They were given traditional radio-controlled devices and stripped out all the human interactions, bar the safety fallbacks.
Martyn and Kim 'tuning the system'
Students Martyn and Kim 'tuning the system'
"We then put in our own intelligence, our own autonomy and our own control," said Dr Browne. "This is part of what the students learn on the Cybernetics course at the University of Reading."
While sounding like a Robot Wars-style fun exercise, the end result could have a significant impact on the amount of lives lost in the armed forces.
"The importance for the technology itself is to autonomise vehicles rather than put human lives in danger," said Dr Browne.
"What we want are machines that are low cost, high flexibility, plot their own courses around obstacles, fly set paths and autonomously identify what's going on."
The robots are programmed to look at "past patterns and past experiences" and match those to what is happening "in the real world".
"If we blow up a hundred robots it really doesn't matter, we just build more of them," said Dr Browne.
"Even one person getting injured is something that we're looking to avoid."
Nine students from the Cybernetics department, along with academic and support staff, were part of a team called T3 that developed autonomous robots for a gruelling 'threat detection challenge' in a MOD mocked-up village.
The T3 team and their robots
T3 - also comprising of a range of companies as well as students from Bristol University - spent a total of 12 days at Copehill Down in Salisbury Plain braving the mud and competing against ten other teams in the MOD Grand Challenge.
Out of the three prizes available T3 were awarded the Engagement prize for the 'most imaginative use of national talent'.
"We're absolutely over the moon," exclaimed Dr Browne, "the students have put in so much work as part of the T3 team."
Student Chris in the 'forward operating base'
Seven teams, including a rival team from Reading University, went through to the three-day grand finale, in which they had an hour to search 150 m2 of Copehill Down village to identify different types of threat.
These could include improvised explosive devices, snipers, military vehicles and armoured soldiers, with the number of correct identifications being used to rank the teams.
The vehicles needed to move autonomously from a forward operating base and communicate the identity and position of threats back to base.
"It's an extremely difficult and complex task," said Dr Browne.
"Imagine a small Bavarian village in the middle of Salisbury Plain.
"You've got literally a transit van that acts as a forward operating base and you've got to put all your equipment in it, drive to the edge of the village, set off all your autonomous vehicles - your ground vehicles and your helicopters with all the high-tech sensors on - and then you've got to fly over and drive over the terrain looking for soldiers, improvised explosive devices, and snipers."
The autonomous helicopter robot
After the exercise the team return back to base and report on the identified threats, which are then analysed by the MOD Grand Challenge "experts".
"We actually managed to find six out of the 12 threats, which is absolutely fantastic," said Dr Browne. "If you're going into an unknown village or area you want to identify as many threats as possible."
The Reading University M Eng (masters of engineering) students, headed up by Kim Cave-Ayland, developed both the ground vehicles and the helicopters.
They were given traditional radio-controlled devices and stripped out all the human interactions, bar the safety fallbacks.
Martyn and Kim 'tuning the system'
Students Martyn and Kim 'tuning the system'
"We then put in our own intelligence, our own autonomy and our own control," said Dr Browne. "This is part of what the students learn on the Cybernetics course at the University of Reading."
While sounding like a Robot Wars-style fun exercise, the end result could have a significant impact on the amount of lives lost in the armed forces.
"The importance for the technology itself is to autonomise vehicles rather than put human lives in danger," said Dr Browne.
"What we want are machines that are low cost, high flexibility, plot their own courses around obstacles, fly set paths and autonomously identify what's going on."
The robots are programmed to look at "past patterns and past experiences" and match those to what is happening "in the real world".
"If we blow up a hundred robots it really doesn't matter, we just build more of them," said Dr Browne.
"Even one person getting injured is something that we're looking to avoid."
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