A COMPANY which develops cameras with artificial intelligence to help 'fight crime and save lives' has been handed an award by BT.

Archangel Imaging, based at Harwell Space Campus, has scooped the prize as part of the BT Infinity Awards which looks for innovative small and medium enterprises with expertise in artificial intelligence and robotics.

The Oxfordshire company took home top spot for the digital defence enablement catergory after impressing judges with its technology which combines hyperspectral sensors and machine vision to better detect objects which could be missed by the human eye.

The firm says its technology has the potential to help when tracking illegal activity such as smuggling or child labour, plus could monitor offshore infrastructure such as oil pipelines.

As part of the competition, in partnership with the Cabinet Office and TechHub, there were nine finalists who were assessed by a panel of experts.

After a Dragons' Den-style presentation , the judging panel picked three winners: Archangel Imagine, Ultimate.ai and Cortexica.

MoD commander of the Joint Forces command General Chris Deverell said: “Congratulations to all the winners. Companies such as Archangel Imaging show the potential of applying such technologies to the military sector to modernise Defence."