2017 was the year EasiBridge stepped out of the farm workshop and onto the world stage — three times over.
In autumn 2017, approximately 200 British troops gathered at Copehill Down on Salisbury Plain Training Area for the Army Warfighting Experiment (AWE 17), the British Army’s flagship annual exercise for evaluating emerging military technologies. Among 72 innovations on trial, EasiBridge demonstrated a 56-foot (approximately 17-metre) span installed and crossed from a single bank — in near silence, without mechanical plant, by a small dismounted team. Personnel from 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment, 51 Squadron RAF Regiment, and 45 Commando Royal Marines put it through its paces in realistic urban warfare scenarios. The system held its own.
Just weeks later, in November 2017, EasiBridge exhibited at Innovate 2017 — the UK government’s flagship annual innovation showcase. The official GOV.UK record of the event singled it out by name among the new products launched: “a portable ‘Easibridge’ system for applications such as evacuation and rescue, from Bright Structures. A 16 metre bridge can be installed and crossed by just one person in under 30 seconds.” It shared the floor with robotics funded by a £68 million Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, AI startups, and the newly launched Innovate UK innovation loans programme — and held its own there too.
And that wasn’t all. 2017 also saw EasiBridge conduct a direct demonstration to the Indian Army — the first international military interest in the system, and a signal that the technology’s appeal stretched well beyond British shores.
By the end of the year, the 18-metre span barrier had been broken, the first international doors had opened, and EasiBridge had proved itself in front of three of the world’s most demanding military audiences. The momentum it generated fed directly into the DASA Rapid Innovation Grant awarded in 2018 and the first Royal Engineers order in 2019.