Credit: Univ. of Greenwich |
A robot, developed in collaboration between NIC Instruments
and the Univ. of Greenwich, includes nuclear, biological,
and chemical weapons sensors.
Measuring just 72
cm by 35 cm, the robot weighs 48 kg and can move at speeds of up to eight miles
per hour.
The two-year
collaboration between NIC Instruments and the University of Greenwich,
known as a Knowledge Transfer Partnership, will run until September 2011. The
main role provided by Greenwich
was in lending NIC Instruments its expertise in electronic systems design and
software engineering.
Dr Steve
Woodhead, Reader in Computer Systems & Networks within the university’s School of Engineering, said: “It’s great to
be able to employ our specialist knowledge to support a small manufacturing
company in its next stage of development, as well as producing a vital security
product.”
Key customers for
the finished product are expected to include the defense and security forces of
several EU countries. On the completion of the partnership, NIC Instruments
predicts that its annual turnover will double within two to three years.
Steve Wisbey, the
organization’s Managing Director, said: “The partnership with the University of Greenwich has allowed us to expand our
technology base considerably in a highly compressed timescale. We are now
exploring ways of extending our partnership, as other security projects between
us are already under way.”
The university’s
Greenwich Research & Enterprise office, which was instrumental in setting
up the Knowledge Transfer Partnership, was shortlisted for a Times Higher
Education magazine award in 2010 for Outstanding Research Management Team.
