The Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) has allocated £800,000 to 11 projects on the development of telexistence technologies.
The agency, part of the Ministry of Defence, has announced the winners of its telexistence themed competition, run by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl).
Telexistence technologies allow a human user to operate in an environment without being there. The competition has been aimed at providing solutions to support personnel from the military, government, emergency services and humanitarian agencies in hazardous environments.
Seven companies and two universities are responsible for the 11 projects to win support: Veolia Nuclear Solutions, Cyberselves Universal, Digital Kinematics, Createc, L3Harris Technologies, Holoxica, TNO, University of Leeds and Sheffield Hallam University.
The announcement said they will cover ideas from areas including kinematic mapping, virtual reality, haptics, robotics and telepresence.
Rob Baldock, Dstl programme manager for emerging technology, said: “This is the culmination of several years of developing the concept of telexistence inside Dstl from the idea of combining different areas of emerging science into the concept of projecting human presence into a remote environment and immersive feedback for the operator.
“This has huge potential to make many highly dangerous military operations and other hazardous civil operations much safer for our frontline operators and save lives in the future.
mage from GOV.UK, Open Government Licence v3.0
