Europe. The ‘Unmaned Semifixed Sea Platforms’ (USSPs) project, in which Navantia is involved, has been selected to receive funding from the European Defence Industrial Development Program (EDIDP) 2020 in the Maritime Surveillance field.
USSPs project is valued at 19.5 million euros and will have an European funding of 12.8 million, being the largest of the 26 projects selected in the EDIDP in its 2020 call.
USSPs will develop a highly autonomous, energy efficient unmanned platform prototype, based on miniaturized oil platform technologies and with a wide range of aerial, surface and submarine sensors. It can be deployed in any geographical area, including deep water, and in adverse environmental conditions, so it will be very versatile in operation.
The goal of the initiative is to integrate the necessary systems and assets through innovative solutions to enhance maritime surveillance capabilities, reduce resource utilization and mission costs, and provide persistent and ongoing maritime situational awareness across all scopes.
A total of 15 European companies participate in USSPs, coming from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Spain, France, Greece, Ireland and the Netherlands, coordinated by the Greek ETME.
Navantia’s participation will take place in the areas of Command and Control systems, Platform Control, Light Weapons systems, unmanned vehicles, power plant and technical support. For Navantia, this will mean 25,000 hours of work, with highly qualified personnel during the three and a half years of the project.
Other participants are Applied Intelligence Analytics Limited (Ireland), Naval Group (France), Prolexia (France), Multimedia Workshop (Bulgaria), Sener Aeroespacial (Spain), Signalerix Limited (Cyprus), SMTS Designer and Constructors (Netherlands), Stichting Maritiem Research Instituut Nederland (Netherlands), Techlam (France), Tecnobit (Spain) y Utek (Spain) along with CyRIC-Cyprus Research and Innovation Center Foundation for Research & Technology – Hellas.
USSPs is one of the 26 projects selected by EDIDP in its last financial cycle. In the 2019 call, Navantia participated in the selected SEA DEFENCE project together with other European shipyards.
EDIDP, aimed at promoting collaboration between European defense companies for the development of new solutions, is one of the precursor programmes of the European Defence Fund (EDF), which has just launched its first call. These tools are intended to promote a European industrial and technological base in the field of defence, which is innovative and competitive and thus contributes to the strategic autonomy of the EU.
