Photos: Tech wins big in US Army 'best inventions' awards

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Soldiers are renowned for finding ways to modify and improve their issued gear to meet the realities of life in the field. Often, that involves using liberal amounts of duct tape. Then there are the more substantial efforts to build a better piece of gear. The US Army this week paid tribute to some of that work in the form of its Top 10 Greatest Inventions of 2008 awards, which recognise equipment that was fielded within the army during 2008.

The first one on display here is the Enhanced Mobile Rapid Aerostat Initial Deployment Vehicle (Emraid), from the US Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center. The Emraid vehicle integrates a number of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities onto a single, rapidly deployable platform.

Photo credit: US Army via Flickr.com under the following Creative Commons licence