Grand Challenge finale gets underway

The Grand Challenge is a major science and technology competition directly relevant to the military challenges faced by the UK Armed Forces.

It asks competitors to create a largely autonomous system that can detect, identify, monitor and report the position of a wide range of threats that UK Armed Forces currently face when operating in an urban environment. These include marksmen, vehicles mounted with heavy weapons, groups of armed foot soldiers and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) such as roadside bombs.

The Grand Challenge seeks solutions to the dangers faced by troops patrolling in urban environments against asymmetric forces and aims to demonstrate the value in having advance intelligence provided by unmanned systems.

Launched in July 2007, this week sees the culmination of the Grand Challenge which has involved hundreds of individuals, firms, and research institutions working for over a year to propose and create the system.

Of the numerous teams and proposals that have been put forward, eleven have survived to compete in this week's final. These teams bring together expertise from 17 small and medium sized enterprises, seven universities and two schools. Another three schools have been involved through the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Network (STEMNET). Some of the teams have been funded by the MOD while other teams have entered with their own funding.

Andy Wallace the Grand Challenge Project Leader from Defence Technology and Innovation Centre explained the importance of the event:

"The Grand Challenge is important form a business perspective and a technology perspective. From a business perspective we have small and medium sized enterprises, universities and schools carrying out defence research.

"From a Technology angle, our troops are on operations deployed in very challenging areas so we feel it's important to look at the technology available and see what can be done to help them identify the threats and take appropriate action. The technology today is good enough to be adapted to some kind of platform that can help the troops in this way."

The proposed systems from the final teams include ground and aerial unmanned vehicles equipped with an array of technologies and sensors. A profile of each team and their equipment can be found at the Defence Science website. See Related Links >>>

They will be put to the test over the next few days at Copehill Down, the military training village, on Salisbury Plain, where the vehicles will need to navigate around the village and detect and report a series of threats, including simulated IEDs within a one-hour period.

Competing systems will be judged by science and technology experts who have knowledge of the kind of environment that these systems will be required to operate in.

The winning team will be presented with the R J Mitchell Trophy, made from the metal recycled from a Spitfire, on Tuesday 19 August 2008. The Grand Challenge, developed from current operational challenges, was inspired by great innovators of the past like RJ Mitchell who designed the Spitfire.

Andy Wallace added:

"We've already been testing the equipment and seen some very exciting technology already. It depends on how mature the actual technology is but we could award the winning team a contract for further development.

"For the modest investment we've put into this project and the fact we have 11 teams putting forward equipment, we have optimised the defence budget by searching for the technology in this way."

Copehill Down Village is the largest fighting in built-up areas (FIBUA) training facility in Europe. The village is used for pre-deployment training for UK and Allied armed forces, providing troops with essential skills for urban operations. Built in 1986, Copehill Down resembles a small northern European town, complete with a church, school, hotel and bar. The site is approximately 350m by 450m. The village contains around 80 buildings and includes a more recently build section based on an Iraqi village.

Patrolling in urban environments against an evolving and rapidly changing threat is an ongoing element of current operations for UK Armed Forces.

Recent developments in unmanned systems have seen a revolution in the way intelligence is collected and relayed to commanders. However, current in-service systems focus on long-range, high-flying operations providing a strategic surveillance and reconnaissance capability.

Recent advances in the technology, safety and flexibility of unmanned systems mean their great potential to assist short-range, reactive operations, such as urban patrols can be realistically considered. Such systems need to be operable by small numbers of troops at very short notice, with the minimal amount of user input. This requires the system to have a high degree of autonomy and to be effective it must have the capability to reliably identify threats to the troops and relay them quickly to the commander.