Competitors in a U.K. contest to create new technology to support ground troops in urban areas will benefit from funding of $25 million Cdn, 15 per cent more than originally planned, from the Ministry of Defence.

The focus of the Grand Challenge is to "produce an autonomous or semi-autonomous system designed to detect, identify, monitor and report the position of a wide range of threats within a complex military urban environment, including within individual buildings," according to the contest website.

The final contest takes place over two weeks in August 2008, when an army of autonomous robots will march across Britain's Wiltshire countryside to compete in an urban mock-up of an East German village.

The funding was boosted because of interest in the competition, the U.K. ministry suggests in a news release issued Monday. 

The ministry has received a total of 23 proposals from firms and research institutions. Judges have selected to fund six proposals to compete in the finals, and eight more teams have entered the challenge with private funding.

There is no cash prize for the winner.

"The winner will have the kudos from their peers of being the best. Rising and meeting a challenge is very stimulating for any profession and will be for U.K.’s innovators," said Lord Drayson, minister of state for defence equipment and support, in a statement.

Similar contests are taking place across the world.

Recently, Singapore announced a competition to build the best robot capable of urban warfare, seducing competitors with a prize of $764,000 Cdn. And in the U.S., the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will in November hold its third such contest, the DARPA Grand Challenge.