Oxford Dynamics, headquartered in Harwell, Oxfordshire, has a £1 million contract with the MoD to design, develop, and supply the robot.
Strider is a robot designed to work in the aftermath of chemical, biological, or nuclear events, as well as in areas with lethal radiation.
One of the company’s directors, Mike Lawton, stated, “Ultimately, let’s be able to build 100, maybe 1,000, 10,000 Strider robots for the benefit of the world.”
The business began developing Strider in November and must give it to the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory by September for use by Defra.
It is expected to be employed in the aftermath of an incident comparable to the Novichok attack in Salisbury in 2018.
It can remove contaminated things and place them in sealed containers, as well as perform semi-autonomous tasks that humans wearing personal protective equipment would find difficult.
It can also navigate challenging and unknown terrain utilizing infrared, radar, and lidar (light detection and ranging) technologies.
