ROME — As supplies are rushed to the front line in Ukraine using unmanned aerial and terrestrial platforms, the European Defense Agency has brought manufacturers and militaries together at an Italian training site to ensure Europe has the right kit and doctrine – as soon as possible – to do the same thing.
Unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned ground vehicles were sent into action at an exercise near Rome organized by the EDA to spark better dialogue between the developers of new platforms and the soldiers that need them.
The first-ever European Defence Innovation Operational Experimentation (OPEX) campaign, was designed to bring what the EDA called the “valley of death,” where industry research and innovation stall and die before getting into the hands of militaries.
“The war in Ukraine reshaped our understanding of defense innovation, compressing years of development into weeks through rapid prototyping, adaptability, and tight collaboration among armed forces, engineers, and civilians,” said André Denk, EDA’s chief executive at the event.
“Accelerating innovation from the lab to the field is our ticket to operational relevance,” he added.
The exercise at the Italian army’s Montelibretti facility showed off aerial and terrestrial platforms from six companies.
Portugal’s Beyond Vision, Greece’s Altus LSA and Austria’s Schiebel fielded UAVs while Spain’s Alysis, Poland’s Piap and Germany’s Arx Robotics showed off UGVs.
As UGVs scrambled in and out of water filled ditches they were watched by military officials from Italy, Austria, Germany, France, Belgium, Cyprus and Greece.
Three weeks of technical trials at Montelibretti which wrapped up on July 3 will be followed by operational trials at the Italian army’s facility at Nettuno, also Rome.
“We are missing a link between research and development and end users, and this exercise was a chance for militaries to see the technology in action and understand the possibilities for tactics and doctrine,” said an EDA official.
“Ukrainian experts have helped us design scenarios for the use of the technology and the EDA will create a blueprint to show armies how they can quickly integrate it,” added the official.
The exercise involved showing how supplies could be dropped off by UAV and transferred to a UGV for a final journey to a front line.
The official said such experimentation was underway at the national level in Europe using local firms.
“We are now showing armies systems they don’t know about and increasing discussions and lessons for the first time,” the official said.
Tom Kington is the Italy correspondent for Defense News.
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