The “COMMANDS” European Defence Fund 2021 project has been officialy launched at a Kick-Off Meeting chaired by the European Commission DG DEFIS at Sener Aeroespacial Brussels office.
The project“Convoy Operations with Manned-unManneD Systems”(COMMANDS) aims to privide a solution to face most of the challenges in the use of unmanned ground systems (UGS) in combination (swarming) with manned military vehicles and air systems under the umbrella of a System of Systems, able to provide an intelligent and effective cooperation of the different assets, identifying the gaps to be covered in order to strengthen the European military operations aided by unmanned or remotely piloted vehicles, under the European independent strategy principle.
The results will not only enable to upgrade current ground vehicles of the EU inventory for specific missions, but also to be integrated in future vehicles in development.
A multidisciplinary team, led by Sener Aeroespacial, will cover the different aspects of the activity, incorporating 21 Consortium Partners from 10 member States that provide a multidisciplinary and complementary approach (OEMs, midcaps, specialised SMEs, renowned universities and both puplic and private research centres and laboratories) to answer the needs of the European Commission and the Member States, strengthening the European Industry and Technological Base.
The proposal is developed in the context of PESCO project iUGS, and is strongly aligned with the Ground Combat Capabilities of EU Capability Development Priorities (CDP), addressing modular, open and scalable architecture for manned and unmanned joint capabilities, developed in cooperation.
The European Commision awarded €24.8 million funding to the COMMANDS project led by Sener Aeroespacial, will will have a total cost of €26.8 million during a three-year execution, and counts on the support of seven Ministries of Defence which have provided common requirements for the project as end-users.