Fresh start sought for British robotics

Shows how two events one week apart earlier this year pointed the way for the UK to put itself in the vanguard of the next stage of intelligent robotics development. First came the publication of a report Technology and Market Review of the Robotics Sector which studied the state and prospects of robotics in seven sectors of UK industry and proposed that special efforts, including demonstrator projects should be focused first on the food industry sector and then on the medical sector. The second event was the launch of SILVER SIG, a Special Interest Group for Intelligent VEhicles and Robotics. A major participant in SILVER is the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, DERA, which is committed to linking commercial industry with government research ‐ in this case in the development of intelligent vehicles.