SERBIA AND NATO ARE CREATING A ROBOT! Its name is T-WREX, and this is what it's capable of!

Cooperation between Serbia and NATO is going on in many sectors, and the results are often impressive (and not so much covered in media), and some of the most impressing are competed in the cooperation within Alliance program Science for Peace and Security (SPS). We had the honor to talk about the cooperation between Serbia and the Alliance with Dr Debuz Beten, the leader of NATO Science for Peace and Security Program, who was visiting Serbia these days. 

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DR Beten, Serbia has been in the SPS program for 10 years now. What are the the greatest achievements that were born from this cooperation?

Serbia has been an really active partner in the SPS program for the past decade, and whole academic community benefits from it, local citizens and government sectors. In this moment, the most of cooperation is focused in the areas such as safety technology development, part of women in sectors of peace and security, and the defense from chemical, biological and nuclear agents (CBRN agents). For example, project for improvement of increasing efficiency of fuel cells technology that has been going for many years, with ultimate goal of producing the robust and durable portable power source for military and other purposes, which was started two years ago. One more project within SPS that includes scientists from Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, Slovenia and United Kingdom, are working on developing of simple atmospheric stream of plasma, which would effectively decontaminate the surfaces or destroy or remove agents of chemical or biological warfare. In the past, Serbia has also participated in many activities in SPS on the field of ecological safety, and many strengthened  our regional cooperation. This includes development and improvement of Harmonized seismic hazards in the Western Balkans, which included seven states of the region. One more project dealt with the assessment of percentage of danger from chemical pollution of the basin of Sava river and development of tools for cost-effective management of water which would be useful in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. So, as you can see, our cooperation is very important.

You are cooperating with scientists from Serbia for quite some time. How is their work in comparison with scientists from western countries?

We have a great experience with scientists from Serbia. Science and research work have high reputation, and your scientists and expert, who were part of SPS program, were key contributors in several projects. This cooperation is mutually beneficial, for scientists of both sides. We saw that the scientists from Serbia work great with their colleagues from NATO and other partner countries, and i believe in creating these professional, international networks is very important aspect within SPS, especially for young scientists that are starting their careers.

Foto: NATO

One of the projects you are working on with Serbia is robot with whegs. Can you tell us a bit more about the project - who's working on it, when will it be finished and what will this robot be capable of?

"Whegs" are combination of wheels and legs (whegs = wheels + legs). The idea is to combine best aspects of both and to enable the robot to be stable (if its on wheels) while, in the same time, it is capable to cross difficult terrains, like using legs. New in this project is the fact that the "whegs" stiffness can be dynamically modified (in order to adapt to the terrain), for the purpose of improving the mobility of the robot. Eventually, robot "T-Wrex" will be able to be used for purposes like decontamination, demining, and detection of dangerous agents, like chemicals, biological, radioactive and nuclear (CBRN) substances. Serbian ministry of energy supports this project and they already expressed interest in using this product as an customer. Participants in this projects are German team from the Technological University Ilmenau, with the leader professor Hartmut Vide and the team from the University of Nis, with the leader Goran Djordjevic. They started their three year research in 2014 and we expect for the end customers to take away the product of the project.

Next workshop of SPS, that will be held in Serbia, will deal with the development of resilience and reducing regional vulnerability in potential catastrophic situation. And what will this workshop especially be about?

The event you are referring to is the workshop funded by SPS, called "Implications of climate changes and disasters of military activity: Building up the resilience and reducing regional vulnerability on Balkans". This project deals with the important topic indeed. It will be about implications of climate changes and disasters of military activity on the Balkans, and based on that, identification of policy and technical approach of building up the resilience and reducing regional vulnerability. This workshop will be held during this week and i am happy to say that it is about joined initiative of Serbia and Bulgaria, which arose from Informing Day SPS last year in Sofia, where Serbia was represented by ministry of science and education.

Foto: NATO

Many projects of SPS have concrete products and prototypes as results. Who is using the results eventually within SPS?

Generally, NATO doesn't have the the the rights on the intellectual property created withing SPS project, but we are also requiring from the institutions that are part of the program to sign the agreement about intellectual property with each other. The results of SPS projects are often represented on the international conferences or in academic papers, so everybody who is interested in it can have access to it. Also, we tend to include the end consumers in our product, who guide research, provide feedback, test prototypes and further develop results of SPS project. The end consumers can be (but not exclusively) state ministries, state organisations or regional government withing the member state or in private, commercial and/or industrial companies. 

Who can apply for cooperation with SPS, and how is it done?

SPS is one of the important programs of the NATO partnership, based on mutual cooperation regarding civil defense, technology and innovation. The program provide means that enable the Allies and partner institutions to participate in cooperation on activities regarding safety, through many years of research projects, workshops and training program.  All interested parties can apply for activity funding that is under some of these formats, and that has to be lead by the project director from at least one NATO country or by the NATO partner country. All applicants must have some connection with the government, academic or other non profit institutions. Of course, the applications must deal directly with one of the key priorities of SPS, have clear connection with safety and contribute to strategic goals of the Alliance.

(Telegraf.co.uk / Igor Cuzovic)