The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) Forensics Department are often called out to crime scenes for evidence capture, which involves taking pictures of the crime scene and associated areas. These photographs are only taken from a human height and it would be beneficial if they could be taken from an elevated perspective, as a greater amount of evidence could be captured. The MPS contacted Middlesex University as they have expertise in the field of robotics. A brief was agreed upon between both MPS and Middlesex to develop a robotic platform which could climb up existing street furniture and capture images from an elevated perspective.
The collaboration between the two parties had no financial agreements at this point in the development stage as MPS was only giving an insight to what type of equipment was required. The project was self-funded by the Senior Design Engineering student Mehmet Ali Erbil as part of a final year degree project submission.