As it is related to EUDIS, and in addition to the development activities, this call topic aims to support innovation opportunities and enable small companies to receive acceleration support and demonstrate innovative technologies relevant to soldier systems. To achieve this objective, financial support to third parties (FSTP, i.e., cascade funding). This should increase the opportunities for various smaller actors, including those not previously active in the defence sector, to adapt innovative technologies for soldier systems, which include a significant number of small elements such as ballistic protection, load carrying systems, textiles/clothing, including smart textiles, requirement for light batteries, electronic equipment (e.g., for communication, situational awareness, GPS, various sensors, etc.), and to identify potential business opportunities in the defence sector.

It is therefore to continue the development of a demonstrator and the underlying concepts, by increasing the technical maturity for the capability suites to enable evaluation under representative conditions, and to demonstrate a new level of innovative technologies and the capability to address new threats, in the perspective of the NGDSS.

This should enable the EDTIB to design and promote a common, open and an innovative standard essential to the development of new equipment and subsystems for an interoperable solution.

Dismounted combat is highly exposed to high intensity operations. Recent conflicts around the world show that improving the soldier’s proximal defence is essential to maintaining a good numerical ratio on the battlefield. The robotisation of the battlefield is a clear opportunity, but also a constant threat to which a dismounted combat platoon must constantly adapt.

The challenge for soldier systems is to improve the effectiveness, resilience, and survivability of the soldiers on the battlefield. It should be designed for an easy integration of soldiers in the digital battlefield, through interoperability features, allowing them to quickly access available information and to receive protection against new threats (e.g., swarms, loitering munitions), while reducing the total burden on the soldier (i.e., including physical load and cognitive load).
The development of the NGDSS aims to meet this objective by finding synergies with emerging concepts and developments, through an updated open-source architecture and individual and networked capabilities.

The objective of this call topic is to enable the EDTIB to design and promote an innovative and open standard essential for the development of new equipment and subsystems for an interoperable and sovereign solution for a NGDSS. Taking into account the lessons identified from recent conflicts, this call topic aims at addressing solutions in response to new threats, in particular those based on quickly adoptable civil technologies. These solutions should be applicable to urban and densely populated environments in temperate, cold, and hot climates. Certain individual solutions can be combined to achieve a collective effect at the platoon level. The main specific challenge is to increase the maturity of the different building blocks required in terms of survivability, sustainability, mobility, energy, observation, and lethality, and to improve the ergonomic integration and system reliability at the soldier system level. Another challenge is to further explore and demonstrate the benefits of emerging technologies, in particular to protect soldiers against growing and evolving threats in a high-intensity warfare environment.

The selected third parties should be offered the opportunity and financial support to test their solutions, receive technical mentoring and other relevant acceleration services for a specific period. This should support the creation of a cross-border defence innovation network that encompasses players that would otherwise not have the means to access EDF actions, thereby further enhancing innovation capacity and competitiveness of the EDTIB.

With a view to a NGDSS capable of facing new types of threats, the proposals must further develop the concepts and open architecture for soldier systems with leading edge innovative technologies, by increasing the technical maturity of the capability suites to enable evaluation under representative conditions, including prototyping and testing of relevant soldier capability suites and devices.

The proposals must therefore address:

• The update and further development of the European open and modular architecture for Soldier Systems, in the perspective of the NGDSS with possibilities of open-source interfaces for integration of technologies and networking (e.g., with Battle Management Systems).
• The detailed analysis of requirements for the NGDSS, including end-user perspectives view and observations from recent conflicts.
• The study and the design of a range of innovative technologies for new equipment, specifically focused on high intensity combat.
• Prototyping activities for the various hardware and software building blocks for individual soldiers and teams.
• Testing and evaluation activities for the integrated hardware and software building blocks for individual soldiers and teams.

The proposals must describe how entities with expertise on the relevant technologies know-how should be supported, including the proposed implementation conditions for FSTP. Recipients of FSTP that contribute to the technology development must receive financial support to prepare a sample of their technology, to attend and support the testing of their technological sample, and to technologically improve their solution.
FSTP may also be provided to entities that contribute with analysis and measurement capacities, technology-specific expertise, innovative tools, or support the manufacturing of technology test samples or components necessary for testing. The proposals must include technical mentoring for the selected recipients of the FSTP as well as the set-up of additional measures to support the recipients of the FSTP business case.