Contract for the Supply of a Distributed Acoustic Sensing Unit to the University of Birmingham

Silixa Ltd have already successfully collaborated with University of Birmingham on the use and development of an earlier generation of acoustic sensing equipment (Bense et al., 2016), so we know that they are prepared to act in this way and we can build on the existing relationship. Silixa have agreed to include free training for university staff on using the iDAS unit. While this might not appear exceptional, Silixa staff have co-authored three of above references and thus their knowledge and research experience will be uniquely valuable for the success of our project - we have one year remaining on the capital grant that is funding the equipment and in which to obtain robust datasets; we simply do not have time to make 'learning to use the equipment in previously untried applications' on the way. We also have a limited research budget and Silixa Ltd have included a generous discount on the normal cost of this equipment on the condition that we use it collaboratively and only for academic research. The research funding awarded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council for purchasing this equipment is a maximum of £200,000 plus VAT.