The European Defence Fund (EDF) is the Commission’s initiative to support collaborative defence research and development, and to foster an innovative and competitive defence industrial base.
To fulfil their missions, the next generation of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are expected to offer an increased level of autonomy. Their effective deployment necessitates key features of swarming and navigation to target positions when GNSS availability is contested or lost and more generally in non-permissive environments.
The use of various types of sensors (e.g. inertial, optical, infrared, hyperspectral, radar, LIDAR, acoustic, etc.) and intelligent information fusion are needed to provide the necessary capabilities to tackle these technical and operational challenges. Such intelligent navigation payloads should be usable on a wide range of unmanned assets, including in swarm formations, while having a low SWaP-C (Size, Weight, Power and Costs). Their performances should be measured in a quantitative, objective and comparable way.
The proposals must address technological solutions for autonomous aerial drone navigation in non-permissive environments. These solutions must be evaluated through the testing environment set up in the framework of the technological challenge.
The proposals must cover at least the following tasks as part of mandatory activities:
Generating knowledge:
Participation to the evaluation campaigns organised in the framework of the technological challenge, including:
The proposals should substantiate synergies and complementarities with foreseen, ongoing or completed activities in the field of autonomous drone navigation.
Functional requirements
The proposed technologies should meet the following functional requirements:
In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
Consortium composition
Proposals must be submitted by minimum 3 independent applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities) from 3 different eligible countries.
Ministry of Defense
Address: 172-174 Strovolos Avenue, 2048 Strovolos, Nicosia
Telephone: 22 807500
Email: defence@mod.gov.cy
Website: https://mod.gov.cy/
Department of Research and Innovation
Telephones: 22 807755, 22 807754
Email: research.innovation@mod.gov.cy
For help related to this call, please contact: DEFIS-EDF-PROPOSALS@ec.europa.eu