LONDON (Alliance News) - TP Group PLC said Wednesday it has been awarded GBP900,000 in development funding from the UK Ministry of Defence, under the Defence Growth Partnership Innovation Challenge, to develop one of its artificial intelligence applications.
The engineering company will act as prime contractor and project leader to develop an artificial intelligence applicator to be used for a "specific future naval application".
The two year project will be supported by French aerospace giant Thales SA, the University of Exeter and partners within the Ministry of Defence.
The system will use advanced algorithms developed by TP's recent acquisition Polaris Consulting.
The algorithms will look to "optimise autonomous routing of unmanned vessels deployed on hazardous missions".
"This award is excellent news for the Polaris team and for the Group as a whole and highlights the value of our acquisition strategy to date where an SME with leading technical abilities can be supported by resources, relationships and processes from the wider Group to bring specialist technologies to market and generate real value," said Chief Executive Officer Phil Cartmell.
Cartmell added: "This work will also strengthen our relationship with Thales as a key industrial partner as we work together to deliver the first mission system, and then collaborate on exploitation."
TP said "several prototypes" have already been delivered with early stage funding from the Defence Growth Partnership Innovation Challenge, which included a "successful" sea trail in the Solent, in the south of England, in 2017.
The company said: "Other systems have demonstrated machine-learning capabilities that interpret text streams, and are suitable to assist intelligence officers in threat recognition, or incident investigators on complex equipment such as jet engines."
The engineering company is also hoping the funding will "catapult" to future application development, not necessarily limited to maritime vehicles.
TP Group is in discussions over unmanned air systems and optimising maintenance visits for offshore wind farms.
Shares in TP Group were down 5.8% Wednesday at 6.55 pence each.
Thales Ord (0IW5)