Top spot in technology prize

The University of Edinburgh has been awarded first prize in a technology competition that celebrates innovation in Scotland.

It won £25,000 in the Thales Scottish Technology Prize for a proposal submitted by astronomer Dr Ben Panter (pictured).

Dr Panter is based within the University’s Institute for Astronomy.

He also received a personal prize of £5,000.

I was delighted to win the prize as it gives me the opportunity to take technology we have developed in Astronomy and apply it to a new area, with the potential to save the lives of both troops and civilians.

Life-saving technology

Dr Panter’s winning submission uses technology that could potentially save the lives of soldiers and civilians in war zones.

His concept is to be applied to detecting homemade or improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

It uses a ‘real-time’ software filter to capture imagery of terrain observed from military aeroplanes at different times and perspectives.

Comparisons between the images highlight differences, such as disturbed earth, that could provide an early warning of the presence of IEDs.

The technology has already been successfully applied to motion correction in medical imaging.

These applications will be developed further by spin-out company Blackford Analysis.

Team success in Engineering

A second entry from the University was also selected as a finalist in the Thales awards.

A team from the School of Engineering was presented with a finalist prize for their proposal ‘Programmable Imaging Stream Processor’.

Their proposal won £250.

The team is comprised of Dr Sami Khawam, Mr Ioannis Nousias, Mr Mark Muir and Professor Tughrul Arslan.