A crowd-sourcing-style project has been announced by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), which is seeking to work with scientists on their improvised explosive device (IED) detection innovations.
According to eurekamagazine.co.uk, all academics and industry professionals whose ideas are selected by the MoD's Defence, Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) will receive feedback - with the potential for funding for the most effective solutions.
IEDs are essentially homemade bombs and are commonly used by guerrilla forces or terrorist groups against official armies; for example, insurgent groups in Afghanistan have made heavy use of such weapons.
Don Hardy, senior fellow in the Dstl security sciences department, said: "We're looking for innovative ideas ranging from conceptual studies to pieces of equipment, regardless of technological maturity, which could be used to improve the detection of concealed IEDs."
Submissions that are sufficiently developed are set to be invited to a test site to play out scenarios - these will take place on September 3rd 2012 - January 31st 2013.
Theengineer.co.uk reported that the closing date for submissions to project is October 31st, with application materials available on the organisation's website.
Mr Hardy explained that any ideas that look good during the demonstration days could then be the subject of further research if technical experts from the military are confident of their performance.
Author: Paul Smithson
Date: 2nd August 2012
