UK Ministry of Defense launches urban warfare technology contest

Published 30 November 2006

The MoD Challenge asks professionals and tinkerers alike to help improve communications and intelligence for British soldiers fighting in city environments; winner will receive an MoD contract; draft requirements now available on the Web

A new contest by the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense challenges inventors to help the British military better navigate hostile urban environments. Similar in form to contests previously organized by NASA and DARPA — not to mention the Global Security Challenge, one of our pet favorites — the MoD Grand Challenge ask participants to come up with “an autonomous or semi-autonomous system designed to detect, identify, monitor and report the position of a wide range of threats within a complex military urban environment, including within individual buildings.” The ministry is agnostic about what form such a system would take, and interested applicants are asked to choose from categories ranging from “air vehicles”, “ground vehicles”, “sensors” and “communications”. Both established defense companies and weekend garage tinkerers are encouraged to participate.

After an initial round of judging, some entries will receive MoD funding for further development. A panel of experts will then evaluate their progress. The overall winner will receive an MoD contract and the right to place the RJ Mitchell Trophy (named after the man who invented the Spitfire plane) over their mantelpiece. Interested readers should peruse draft system attributes now posted on the MoD Web site.

-read more in this New Scientist report; MoD Challenge Web site