Naval Group will be technical coordinator for the European Unmanned Semi-Fixed Sea Platforms for Maritime Surveillance (USSPS) project led by ETME

Antonio Peppas et Alain Guillou Naval Group

13 July 2021 Press release

At the end of a highly contested competition, the European Commission through the European Defence Industrial Development Program (EDIDP) has selected on June 30th, 2021 the USSPS solution developed by the European consortium led by the innovative Greek company ETME with two of the largest EU defence manufacturers Naval Group and Navantia ensuring the highest appropriate level of experience on naval engineering and technical coordination. USSPs will develop a system to improve Maritime Surveillance by exploiting unmanned semi-fixed platforms at sea.

The project “Development of Unmanned Semi-fixed Sea Platforms for Maritime Surveillance”(USSPS) will develop the backbone of an advance (C5ISTAR ) federated system of systems. USSPS will integrate legacy assets and systems with innovative solutions, aiming to improve maritime surveillance capabilities, reduce high value asset utilization and mission related costs, and provide cross-domain persistent and permanent maritime situational awareness. The project will develop an unmanned highly autonomous, energy efficient and miniaturized oil rig technology-based platform capable to integrate a wide range of air, surface and underwater sensors. The platforms will enable deployment in any geographical region, including all types of sea-beds and deep-sea regions, and operation under adverse environmental conditions.

With ETME, as leader of the consortium, and Naval Group as Technical coordinator, the consortium brings together major European industrial actors (Navantia, Applied Intelligence Analytics Limited, Prolexia, Multimedia Workshop, Sener Aeroespacial, SIGNALGENERIX, SMST Designer & Constructors, Techlam, Tecnobit Slu, Unmanned Teknologies Applications) as well as research centres (CY.R.I.C Cyprus Research And Innovation Center, Foundation For Research And Technology Hellas (FORTH) and Stichting Maritiem Research Instituut Nederland).

Together, they will create a very innovative and high-value solution to secure and protect various maritime areas allowing to cover both air, surface and underwater dimensions thanks to suitable sensors.

Emerging from the original patented concept of platforms developed by ETME, a Greek leading company specialized in design and management of engineering works and innovative solution, the USSPS system will combine innovative solutions for the integration and coordination of C5ISTAR capabilities to generate maritime surveillance networks of sensors based on semi fixed unmanned platforms.

Making Greece a centre for naval innovation

Naval Group has been present in Greece since 2008. As a bidder in the frigates program, Naval Group designed a robust Hellenic Industry Participation plan to develop new capacities in the Greek industry, sustaining several hundreds of highly qualified jobs and generating long-term economic spin-offs in Greece.

Naval Group’s objective is to further develop its local footprint through partnerships with industry, research and academic partner. Beyond the frigates program, Naval Group seeks to support the development of the future Hellenic naval warfare capabilities through R&D projects with Hellenic companies, universities and research institutes in cutting edge technologies such as additive manufacturing, predictive maintenance, drones or naval mission systems.

This 42-month program to study, design, prototype and test the solution is part of a long-term cooperation in R&D between France and Greece and should lead to significant market opportunities.

Emmanuel Gaudez
Mob. +33 (0)6 61 97 36 63
emmanuel.gaudez@naval-group.com

Dora KHOSROF
Tel.: +33 (0)1 41 08 21 46
Mob.: +33 (0)7 72 42 48 96
dora.khosrof@naval-group.com