A WATERFORD-based company has won the technology category at a major British heritage awards programme for its development of a hand-held multimedia guide to the Culloden battlefield site in Scotland.

Zolk C, a joint venture between a company in Inverness and the Telecommunications Software Systems Group (TSSG) at Waterford Institute of Technology, customised a standard Windows mobile hand-held to provide an interactive tour of the battlefield.

The project was recognised this week at the Museums and Heritage Awards for Excellence in London, where it won the technology category.

The Battle of Culloden took place in April 1746 between the mostly Scottish supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the forces of King George II and marked the end of the Jacobite Rising.

A £9 million visitor centre has just been completed on the site and the National Trust of Scotland commissioned the TSSG to write a report on how technology could be used to provide information to visitors. Because the site is protected and was the death place of 1,500 soldiers, signage and markings were not appropriate.

The PDA can be used for a standard audio tour with recordings triggered at relevant points as visitors walk around the site. However, the PDA also displays a range of content, from re-enactments of the battle filmed by the BBC to images of artefacts found at the site.

Menus on the device change, depending on the visitor's location on the battlefield, to provide additional options for history enthusiasts. The tour took just over nine months to develop, according to Paul Savage, managing director of Zolk C, who says his company's role was to "knit together" the content and technology.

"A lot of sites are using 'wand tours', where you press a button to trigger an audio recording at a particular location," says Savage. "That was fine in the 1990s, but it's not enough now."

Although GPS, the satellite technology used in in-car navigation systems, was the chosen technology at Culloden, TSSG has expertise with Bluetooth, RFID, and indoor positioning systems. Savage says this means the system could be adapted for numerous different types of tourism, heritage and cultural sites.

"Several high-profile sites have been looking at Culloden and what they have done," explained Savage.

He said that Zolk C had intended to grow organically following the completion of its first project at Culloden, but the level of interest generated by the award meant that it was considering funding options to support international expansion.