Multipurpose unmanned ground systems

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Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System

2. Eligible countries: described in section 6 of the call document

3. Other eligibility conditions: described in section 6 of the call document

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Award criteria, scoring and thresholds: described in section 9 of the call document

Submission and evaluation processes: described section 8 of the call document and the Online Manual

Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement: described in section 4 of the call document

6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: described in section 10 of the call document

Call documents:

Call document

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The use of Unmanned x (generic) Vehicles (UxVs) in military operations represents one of the most important innovations of recent years. Undoubtedly, UxVs exploitation is likely to grow in the coming years with the massive introduction of other autonomous systems in different domains (land, air, sea, space, cyber) and the increase of capabilities to work collaboratively between systems (swarms) and people.

Indeed, intelligent and effective cooperation between military assets (UxVs, different types of vehicles and their operators, and dismounted soldiers) within Close Combat Operations is needed to increase the overall Battlespace effectiveness, while reducing loss of life, the risk of collateral damage and lowering the cognitive burden placed upon operators.

Therefore, deploying autonomous and swarm-based military assets in a framework of cooperation between manned and unmanned systems (manned-unmanned teaming) is a very important capability that can enable enhanced ISTAR, survivability, situation awareness, mobility, lethality, logistics and training, and increase the probability of battlefield combat success.

This would allow the rapid development of capacities implying an incremental approach of capabilities milestones for current and future land systems and upgrades of legacy systems.

Specific objective

The use of such UxV systems has a direct impact in reducing the exposure of human operators and soldiers to associated risks. Such systems can radically improve the efficiency and performance of the tactical unit to provide tactical/ operational superiority and offer robust and reliable solutions in very demanding conditions.

Thus, the aim of this topic is to develop an unmanned modular system of systems capable of supporting dismounted, mechanised and motorised infantry in all types of European geographic and operational land environments, including denied environments, in adverse light and weather conditions with evolving levels of autonomy and robustness.

The overarching goal of this topic is to contribute to the maturing, testing and verification of the Unmanned Ground Systems (UGS) capability, so that the technology is expected to be ready for integration into the European armed forces by 2030. Therefore, to ensure wide acceptance and efficient use of the systems, it is pertinent to study, analyse and develop:

• Detailed capability provision assessment for integration into force structures for supporting dismounted, mechanised, and motorised infantry.
• Novel concepts for Human Machine Teaming to enable closed hatch and long-range usage of system capabilities with regards to ethical and legal aspects of combat operations. These concepts should allow a significantly reduced cognitive workload for UGS operator(s) by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the control, direction, monitoring, and supervision of unmanned systems through the development and application of artificial intelligence and assisted functions.
• Enhanced manned-unmanned and unmanned-unmanned teaming capacities of UGSs through advancements in multirobot and swarming technology.
• Modular design and open architectures (regarding platforms, autonomous functions, as well as effector, sensor and other payloads management) with standard interfaces to enable Through Life Capabilities Management (TLCM) in terms of interoperability, scalability, maintainability, availability, robustness and resilience. This should ensure transferability of technology with other manned and unmanned (including drive-by-wire legacy) platforms.
• Federated digital-twin framework would favour this TCLM management and may provide improved training environment for UGS navigation and other mission specific algorithms.
• State-of-the-art equipment and secure information availability to enable enhanced ISTAR, Survivability, Situational Awareness, Mobility, Lethality, Logistics and Training to ensure Battlefield Superiority.
• Self-air-defence (against NATO Class I UAVs), in support of dismounted soldiers, with automatic designation by on-board electro-optical sensors and related data fusion.

Additional enablers for the wide acceptance and use of the Systems are:

• Formation of UGS related R&D ecosystem/community that facilitates continuous innovation, synergies and inclusion of deep-tech start-ups, Technology and system testing, Evaluation, Verification and Validation (e.g., cross-border TEVV procedures, trust).
• Practical testing in a scenario-based exercise (48+ h) with infantry units.

Proposals must address the development of a multipurpose Unmanned Ground System of systems with lethal effectors and solutions for systems integration and manned-unmanned teaming. This system must integrate the following abilities:

• Enhance situational awareness and force protection of ground units, their combat effectiveness, endurance, mobility, and autonomy, and enable faster deployment.
• Support dismounted, mechanised, and motorised infantry in all types of European geographic and operational land environments, including denied environments, in adverse light and weather conditions with evolving levels of autonomy and robustness.
• Significantly reduce cognitive workload for UGS operator(s) using artificial intelligence and assisted functions.
• Have a modular design and enhance interoperability with manned and unmanned platforms to ensure transferability of the relevant technology to other platforms (including existing manned vehicles) and simplify payload integration, with the aim of bringing together European industrial capabilities and define standard interfaces for the benefit of European defence.
• Enhance manned-unmanned and unmanned-unmanned teaming capacities of current UGS.
• Have the capability to analyse different weather conditions, terrain types and obstacles to increase the mobility of single UGS and UGS teams.

The proposal must also provide analysis on the following topics:

• A fully autonomous targeting process and efficient effector(s) management and use against multiple types of targets, and include mobility solutions for engagement, target delegation and other relevant aspects of effector usage.
• The ethical and legal aspects of integrating combat-UGS in the European armed forces (if needed, research to support recommendations/decisions on ethical and legal aspects related to integration of combat-UGS in the EU Armed Forces and their interaction with human beings in the land domain should be included).

Proposals should also integrate the development and TLCM support of equipment (hardware or software) designed to enable personnel to function within different manned-unmanned operational modes and environments, able to be deployed in the digitised Battlefield where all land system assets are available to operate in coherence and demonstrating the following abilities:

• To interconnect in real time within the Battlefield and in a fully secured way with an extended set of systems supported by an intelligent TLCM solution concept.
• To be integrated seamlessly in the digitised systems (e.g., power supply, situational awareness, targeting process) manned or unmanned as and when needed during combat missions.
• To adopt real-time cooperative functionality and enhance Battlefield combat superiority, adaptation and effectiveness with measurable impacts of actions.
• To cooperate within the Battlefield while being able to sustain connectivity and interact with other assets (dismounted troops, UxVs, manned vehicles, swarms, long range support).
• To enable a versatile use in order to be deployed for a large spectrum of close combat operations and provide superior and optimised operational capability in hostile and harsh environment.

Types of activities

The following table lists the types of activities which are eligible for this topic, and whether they are mandatory or optional (see Article 10(3) EDF Regulation):

Accordingly, proposals must cover at least the following tasks:

• Studies to critically analyse the essence of Intelligent Behaviour and Ethics within Land Operations, while understanding the necessary coherence and integration between different enablers to provide state-of-the-art equipment and information superiority for Battlefield success:
  • Consider the ethical and legal aspects of integrating combat-UGS in the European armed forces (if needed, research to support recommendations/decisions on ethical and legal aspects related to integration of combat-UGS in the EU Armed Forces and their interaction with human beings in the land domain should be included).
  • Provide an analysis and present possible solutions for an autonomous targeting process and efficient effector(s) management and use against multiple types of targets, and include mobility solutions for engagement, target delegation and other relevant aspects of effector usage. The system must meet standing law as required, with focus on the principles of discrimination, proportionality and caution in International Humanitarian Law (IHL) – e.g., by providing the possibility to override the systems autonomous engagement by a “human in the loop” manual function in order to meet standing law as required.
  • Provide modular platforms design able to support dismounted, mechanised and motorised infantry in all types of European geographic and operational land environments, including denied environments, in adverse light and weather conditions with evolving levels of autonomy and robustness. This implies modular design and enhance interoperability with manned and unmanned platforms in order to ensure transferability of the relevant technology to other platforms (including existing manned vehicles) and simplify payload integration, in order to bring together European industrial capabilities and define standard interfaces for the benefit of European defence. This also implies significantly reduced cognitive workload for UGS operator(s) through maximum use of artificial intelligence and assisted functions.
  • Provide manned and unmanned platforms and intelligent swarms of platforms with advanced mobility capabilities. This implies developing systems for automation with the ability to perceive the environment and location in all weather and operational conditions (e.g., unstructured environments, GNSS denied, adverse weather conditions, etc.), and resilient communications to the operating position. In critical circumstances the autonomous decision making should be supported, using local platform status (HUMS) and knowledge.
  • Consider line-of-sight (LOS) and beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) support with Command-and-Control system that meets mission planning and management needs, being able to manage the information available before the mission and the information provided during execution (common operational picture), so that the operator can have situational awareness that allows taking operational decisions assisted by the system intelligence (information superiority).
  • Consider resilient and secure communications and high-level cyber security to work simultaneously in different security environments and handle the information.
  • Consider the definition of a predictive maintenance framework encompassing logistics (including across fleet), and in-Battlefield support, including equipment functional configuration and re-role for assets availability and capabilities resilience.
  • Consider the definition of a training framework to ensure specialist personnel availability with all areas of the Battlefield.
  • Consider the definition of digital-twin framework that provides improved TLCM support as well as training environment for UGS navigation and other mission specific algorithms.
• Design an interoperable modular UGS combat platforms framework to demonstrate infantry support by effective engagement, risk reduction, sustainability and mobility, enabled by computerised processing technologies as well as study of the potential early exploitation of innovative technologies, through the:
  • Definition of an interoperable modular architecture and the relevant functions in terms of autonomy, effectors management and necessary modules.
  • Definition of the relevant functions for manned-unmanned and the unmanned-unmanned operation modes for balanced teaming and swarming, environment understanding and advanced decision-making support.
  • Definition of the relevant implementation and integration of functions into a modular open system architecture of the targeted vehicles (hardware, software, networks) and other assets, taking into account EU/NATO existing standards.
  • Definition of the relevant functions implementation within a unified, interoperable and self-sufficient adaptive command and control environment.
  • Definition of the security environment.
  • Definition of open solutions able to embed future sensors, effectors and their optimised systems integration.
  • Proposal for a test case as a basis for demonstration, simulation and prototyping.
  • System integration into the tactical cloud concept and the distributed processing that allows fostering information superiority.
• Develop, Prototype and Demonstrate combat UGS capabilities and technology insertion to provide Intelligent Command and Control within an optimised cooperative environment of human-machine assets, whilst conforming to ethics, legal aspects, safety and security, through:
  • Development of optimised solutions identified within the Design Framework:
    • Integration in a system of systems demonstrator of all the proposed capabilities: multipurpose ground system of systems capable of supporting dismounted, mechanised and motorised infantry in all types of geographic and operational land environments, including denied environments, with evolving levels of autonomy and robustness.
    • Risk mitigation potentially including early exploitation of dismounted troops.
  • Presentation of study results and execution of a demonstration with a test scenario.
  • A detailed plan for the subsequent project phases must be developed, including the identification of implementation priorities, according to the operational needs of the participating Member States.
• Develop technologies or assets increasing efficiency across the life cycle of UGS products and technologies, by substantiating synergies and complementarities with foreseen, ongoing or completed activities in the field of Unmanned Ground Systems, notably those described in the call topics EDF-2021-GROUND-D-UGVT on Unmanned ground vehicle technologies and EDIDP-MUGS-2019 on Multipurpose unmanned ground system, as well as other activities conducted across the EU (e.g., iUGS PESCO, EDA Cat B Combat UGS project).

The proposals may also cover:

• Certification and support to the definition of a Through Life Capabilities framework, enabling battlespace-ready equipment and personnel, infrastructure and organisation, maintenance and logistics, as well as the definition of a Capability Certification framework for operational deployment, encompassing hybrid functionalities within the (human-machine) system (e.g., in the case of dismounted troop providing support to operations).

Moreover:

• projects addressing activities referred to in point (d) above must be based on harmonised defence capability requirements jointly agreed by at least two Member States or EDF associated countries (or, if studies within the meaning of point (c) are still needed to define the requirements, at least on the joint intent to agree on them)
• projects addressing activities referred to in points (e) to (h) above, must be:
  • supported by at least two Member States or EDF associated countries that intend to procure the final product or use the technology in a coordinated manner, including through joint procurement

and

• • based on common technical specifications jointly agreed by the Member States or EDF associated countries that are to co-finance the action or that intend to jointly procure the final product or to jointly use the technology (or, if design within the meaning of point (d) is still needed to define the specifications, at least on the joint intent to agree on them).

For more information, please check section 6.

Functional requirements

The development of functions that enable upgrading a set of current vehicles or to be integrated into vehicles under development or future vehicles with the ability to embed advanced multi-technology sensors networks and advanced effector networks around a common and standardised manned/unmanned teaming capability.

This set of modular components is expected to provide Armoured Fighting Vehicles programs with initial capacity to operate within connected hybrid balanced manned/unmanned Battlefield teams with the following main functional requirements around common, standardised and novel manned-unmanned teaming with a modular and robust architecture:

• Ability to manoeuvre the unmanned vehicles as needed for the relevant functions both in autonomous and remote way, taking into account that:
  • an unmanned ground system can be remotely driven from any position (manned vehicles, possibly moving, operational station, etc.);
  • the operators must have a comprehensive understanding of the environment of remote unmanned systems;
  • the operators must rely on assisted and autonomous functionalities with a special care in the reduction of collateral damage risks;
  • the unmanned systems should be able to interact in terms of manoeuvre in combat situations within a manned-unmanned swarm;
  • the unmanned systems should be able to rely on and switch between several alternative driving modes (e.g., remotely controlled driving, semi-autonomous driving and highly autonomous driving) and call humans into the loop if standing law requires it or the confidence level of the autonomous system gets below a specified level;
  • the unmanned systems should be able to function as part of dismounted and motorised infantry in most relevant environments and capable of manoeuvring autonomously to pre-planned positions and formations, and operating in support to dismounted and motorised infantry operation, by fielding the following abilities:
    • navigate in a GNSS signal-denied environment;
    • autonomously calculate the optimal route and plan the path between two geographical points;
    • generate trajectories for local navigation, adapting the path as needed and overcoming possible obstacles through “sense and avoid” technology;
    • autonomously detect, identify, categorise and track relevant agents and elements from the environment (e.g., targets, potential threats or enemy units, allied units and civilians);
    • autonomously follow dismounted soldiers and vehicles, moving in coordination with them.
• Ability to resort to advanced interaction modes to optimise the number of human operators depending on the interaction modes.
• Ability to understand and adapt to the operational and tactical environment to speed up the decision-making process of the operators by delivering a user-friendly and reliable decision-making support tool. This enables operators to remotely operate all payloads from any of the manned vehicles by:
  • providing good situational awareness to the system operator;
  • providing real-time trusted situational awareness information and information sharing inside a system swarm;
  • allowing to remotely cooperate the effectors of relevant systems (manned and unmanned) in order to gain a tactical advantage and generate tactical options, taking into account the tactical required effects, the collateral damage constraints and the ethical and legal aspects.
• Ability to integrate additional UxSs seamlessly and securely to drastically enhance capabilities in the following domains:
  • force protection against a large spectrum of threats by using specific individual or cooperative countermeasures provided by UxSs;
  • integration of Beyond Line Of Sight (BLOS) combat capabilities.
• Capability to enhance force protection and resilience through:
  • impossibility for the enemy to visually distinguish between manned and unmanned platforms:
    • to prevent external identification of a manned or unmanned vehicle to target it as a priority (does not apply to systems designed to be only used in unmanned mode);
    • to give access to this capacity without increasing the logistic footprint.
  • the improvement of short- and long-range sensors and effectors integration and real-time communication;
  • the interoperability with soldier systems based on EU/NATO standards and previous EDIDP and EDF Projects.
• Use of a diversity of sensors and technical equipment to ensure:
  • the availability of information from variety of data sources;
  • the ability to predict logistic resource requirements using real time data;
  • the ability to navigate primarily with passive sensor systems.
• Use of state-of-the-art system with modern, customisable and intuitive user interfaces that support operators in all their operational, technical and training needs – with particular emphasis put on deployability as the cornerstone of system design – enabling rapid adaptation, implementation, operation and embedded training.
• Ability to operate in all relevant European climate zones and in all areas where relevant EU missions could be conducted.
• Dynamic, scalable and resilient functions, efficiently embeddable in most of the existing ground combat vehicles systems, compliant with their different programme roadmaps and the obsolescence of their modules lifecycles.
• Functions designed to be able to support specified availability requirements to contribute to an open, scalable, highly available and transparent failover architecture.
• Functions designed to be proof against diminution of environmental sensing capability, hostile countermeasures, including the application opportunity in Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) denied operation environment.
• Cyber security aspects to be applied along all project phases, from requirements capture to system design and implementation, in order to ensure adequate resilience, survivability and information protection.
• The system, and especially its command and control (C2), should be able to provide resilient and reliable connectivity in EW hostile environment.
• Functions designed to be able to work simultaneously in different security environments and handle the information security requirements to properly control the information flows between these domains and with external systems. The system should be able to be integrated into environments that impose different security constraints on the exchange of information while remaining usable in an environment with low security constraints.
• Multi-level security to be applied to all systems, data and information access to enable secure multi-national cooperation.
• Functions to be designed in accordance with the modularity openness and standard interfaces principles in order to enable integration of new technological solutions and to enable maintenance, scalability, availability, resilience and obsolescence management.
• Employment of any effector should be in accordance with the requirements of IHL and other regulations with appropriate human control while sensors can potentially be employed autonomously to increase the potential capacity to gather data and increase situational awareness.
• Functions designed to comply or be able to comply with the operational procedures of the targeted vehicles, with ethical and environmental constraints as well as with logistic and defence programme efficiency requirements.
• The ability to shift a system into an unmanned configuration.
• The design to be modular and scalable for future upgrades and implementations of different autonomous functions and must ensure transferability of technology with defined interfaces with other manned and unmanned platforms.
• Digital twins to be available for integration with high-level digital training areas usable with existing simulation systems.

The outcome should contribute to:

• Reduce dependencies on non-European suppliers by boosting the EDTIB and promoting the development of a European solution.
• Develop critical enablers for Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) operations and develop concept of critical enablers for EU Battlegroup missions.
• Enhance UxS self-defence and cooperative force protection.
• Increase readiness and availability for equipment and personnel deployment of EU military missions.
• Reduce the possible number of casualties on friendly forces.
• Interoperability milestones for Member States’ ground capacity programs.
• Improve situational awareness, resilience and security of EU operations.
• Create a reference for manned-unmanned teaming modes and functions to improve the capabilities of the European defence industry to develop and supply state-of-the-art ground systems.
• Reinforce adaptation and interoperability of EU Member States’ armed forces.
• Strengthen the EU’s strategic autonomy in military capabilities.
• Optimise interoperability and synchronisation between manned and unmanned platforms, and soldier systems.
• Reduce the impact of the logistic footprint.