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Global aerospace and defence group BAE Systems has teamed up with leading universities in a £6m project aimed at developing technologies that will benefit the UK’s emergency services.

According to BAE Systems, emergency services are being stretched due to challenges posed by increasingly difficult and non-traditional operations. Jointly funded by BAE and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the five-year Autonomous Learning Agents for Decentralised Data and Information Networks (ALADDIN) programme hopes to address this issue by improving the techniques and technologies used during an emergency response.

The project will work with researchers from universities of Southampton, Oxford, Bristol and Imperial College to develop technologies such as computer modelling and automated robots that are able to react to changing scenarios for future applications in disaster management. The project is scheduled to conclude its research in October next year.