zondag, augustus 31, 2008
Robot Wars
A competition to design new technology for the military is being held in a mocked-up wartime village on Salisbury Plain. The BBC's Alison Harper has been to see it.
You can feel the tension in the air. The team's eyes darting from rooftop to ground looking for threats.
Around the next corner, is there an ambush waiting?
Or are they already targets in a sniper's range?
The answer could be right beside them. This is no battlefield, but a competition to discover the latest technology to locate and identify threats to our troops.
Copehill Down Village is a purpose built training facility in the heart of Salisbury Plain. It's based on an Eastern European town complete with a church, hotel, school and bar.
The concrete facade could be hiding marksmen and the roadside could be littered with improvised explosive devices.
But here for today's contest there is a mix of bizarre looking robots and flying machines all capable of spying on the enemy.
This may be a mocked-up wartime scenario, but the technology is very real and could be developed for use by our military.