Ramona Adams
A Leonardo-led team has won a contract from the European Union’s defense agency to conduct research on maritime surveillance technologies.
Leonardo said Friday it will carry out the OCEAN2020 research initiative alongside 42 partners from 15 European countries.
OCEAN2020 will also involve the integration of unmanned vehicles in naval surveillance and interdiction missions.
The integration effort will support data exchange between naval units’ command-and-control centers and various unmanned platforms, such as fixed-wing, rotary-wing, surface and underwater systems.
The team will demonstrate the joint and cooperative use of manned and unmanned vehicles as part of OCEAN2020.
The project will also include two live demonstrations of maritime surveillance and interdiction operations, which will be performed by European fleets using unmanned aircraft, surface vessels and underwater systems.
Leonardo will provide its Hero and Solo unmanned helicopters for the first demonstration, which will be coordinated by the Italian navy in the Mediterranean Sea in 2019.
The second demonstration is scheduled for 2020 in the Baltic Sea and will be led by Sweden’s navy.
