A consortium led by Milrem Robotics and also composed of several major defence, communication and cybersecurity companies and also high technology SMEs was awarded 30,6 MEUR from the European Commission's European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP) to create a European standardized unmanned ground system.

During the project, a modular as well as scalable architecture for hybrid manned-unmanned systems will be developed to standardize a European wide ecosystem for aerial and also ground systems, command, control as well as communication equipment, sensing units, payloads, as well as algorithms. The prototype system will certainly utilize an existing unmanned ground vehicle-- Milrem Robotics' THeMIS-- and also a specific checklist of payloads.

The outcome of the project will be shown in functional environments and also relevant climatic problems as part of participating participant states armed forces exercises or at different testing grounds.

The total cost of the task, titled iMUGS (integrated Modular Unmanned Ground System), is 32,6 million euros of which 30,6 million will certainly be given by the European Commission.

" Robotic and autonomous systems will enormously improve defence and military capacities in the coming years throughout the globe. iMUGS is an excellent instance of exactly how Europe can use as well as create premium technologies as a joint effort while staying clear of spreading activities as well as sources," said Kuldar Vrsi, CEO of Milrem Robotics.

" It is nice to see, that the European Defence Fund is efficiently consolidating the requirements of EU member states and the European industry's capabilities to increase defence capabilities and also calculated autonomy. The European industry is identified and also all set to provide effective and deployable technologies currently over the next three years during this job," Vrsi included.

The project is led by Estonia as well as its technical demands have likewise been agreed with Finland, Latvia, Germany, Belgium, France, and also Spain who are planning on financing the staying 2 MEUR of the jobs spending plan.

During the project operational knowledge will certainly be gathered as well as concepts for the combined engagement of manned as well as unmanned assets established, while considering the ethical elements applicable to robotics, artificial intelligence, as well as autonomous systems. State-of-the-art virtual and constructive simulation environments will certainly additionally be established.

iMUGS will certainly be a cooperation between 14 parties: Milrem Robotics (project coordinator), GT Cyber Technologies, Safran Electronics & Defense, NEXTER Systems, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, Diehl Defence, Bittium Wireless, Insta DefSec, (Un) Manned, dotOcean, Latvijas Mobilais Telefons, GMV Aerospace and Defence, the Estonian Military Academy and Royal Military Academy of Belgium.

Background

The purposes of the EDIDP programme are to add to the critical autonomy of the European Union and to strengthen the cooperation between Member States. The priorities consist of allowing premium operations of military forces with unique concentrate on intelligence as well as protected communications as well as cyber. Actions consist of development of next generation ground combat capabilities as well as solutions in Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality as well as Cyber technologies.