TWO Hampshire companies are celebrating SMART awards which recognise the South's success in the field of technology.

Presented by the Department of Trade and Industry, SMART awards encourage innovative ideas with commercial potential and have this month been presented to East Stratton-based Oxtek and Bedhampton firm Microsport.

For Oxtek the funding will allow the company to carry out a feasibility study into smart radio frequency test components.

"The project will address the needs of designers and manufacturers of radio frequency analogue circuits and devices,'' said director Andrew Brown.

"It will involve developing smart components which will act like a probe and can be incorporated into an RF circuit to provide information on circuit performance and operation unobtainable by other means.''

He said that if the required circuitry can be made small enough the smart components can be incorporated in test equipment devices where they would provide indications of potential problems long before catastrophic and expensive failures occurred.

"We've had the idea for quite a while but we didn't have the funding so the SMART award has helped us get this project under way.''

Microsport is equally pleased to have awarded a grant which will enable partners Dr Mike Smithard and David Wilson to establish whether or not their idea for a force sensor to help people overcome problems with balance can work.

"Having invented a ski simulator to help people to learn to ski more safely it became apparent that some of the techniques developed for that had a much wider application in the medical field,'' said Dr Smithard.

"Patients recovering from stroke and many other conditions have difficulty in achieving a balanced posture and tend to put more weight on one side of their body than the other.''

News of the grants to Hampshire have been welcomed by the Hampshire Economic Partnership and Business Link Hampshire for encouraging innovation.

HEP chairman Bryan Davies said that if the south east is to develop into a world class region then innovation needs to be encouraged in this way.

"It is very encouraging to see new ideas and inventors in Hampshire successfully competing for government funding,'' he said.

"These grante are proving to be of real worth and help cover the costs for companies to carry out feasibility studies.''

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