Unmanned anti-submarine and seabed warfare

1. Admissibility conditions: described in section 5 of the call document

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

4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in section 7 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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• EDF Standard application form
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• Cofinancing declarations (if the requested EU grant does not cover the total eligible costs of the project)
• Actual indirect cost methodology declarations (if actual indirect costs used)
• Harmonised capability declarations (if the project covers design activities)
• Declarations on procurement intent and common specifications (if the project covers system prototyping/testing/qualification/certification activities)
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EDF General MGA v1.0

Additional documents:

EDF Annual Work Programme

EDF Regulation 2021/697

EU Financial Regulation 2018/1046

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EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement

Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual

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The resurgence of high intensity conflicts at the borders of the European Union, combined with new technologies and hybrid threats, is calling the EU, its Member States and EDF associated countries (Norway) to action. The vulnerability of critical maritime infrastructure, such as undersea cables and pipelines, requires resolute measures to ensure its safety and resilience.

The underwater domain (including the seabed and critical maritime infrastructure) is particularly prone to threats as it is largely unmonitored, uncontrolled and concealed. There is a need to perform an increasing number of operations at the same time to face new generation of silent submarines and drones against the wide array of threats. Current solutions are not sufficient or efficient to deal with these new forms of threats. Unmanned systems are estimated to be the backbone of future solutions enabling European navies to deal with numerous simultaneous missions in larger areas of operations.

Specific objective

The specific objective of this topic is to develop and assess, in a real environment, unmanned platforms and other new assets along with traditional platforms to manage efficiently anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and seabed warfare (SBW) operations to face current and future threats in the new security context.

The aim is to progress in the ASW and SBW with unmanned systems beyond a concept phase to develop and test models or prototypes of UxVs (UAVs, USVs, UUVs, and other unmanned systems) with payloads which will enable ASW and SBW missions. The solution is expected to contribute to and enable an open and agile maritime warfare architecture. The aim is to reach at least a maturity level equivalent to technology readiness level 6 (TRL 6) on at least sub-system level. Higher technology readiness level in the prototyping phase and maturity towards a foreseeable system integration with open architecture are encouraged.

The proposals must address design, testing and prototyping activities through sea demonstrations of next-generation underwater warfare solutions.

The proposals should contribute to new ASW and SBW concepts and may leverage civil R&D results (synergies through spin-ins). The proposals should build on a System-of-Systems (SoS) approach that allows adaptations and additions beyond the proposed solution without manufacturer-specific restrictions. The proposals should consider collaborative ASW and SBW capabilities that are based on manned and unmanned assets, in a highly scalable and heterogeneous communication and information network with self-x-properties. Design and prototyping should include relevant simulations.

The areas concerned for development and improvement, and that must be addressed by the proposals are the following:

• new ASW and SBW concepts;
• detection, classification, identification, and tracking of underwater threats in demanding conditions (such as deep and very shallow waters, challenging seabed topography, and noisy environment);
• collaborative, all-node, all-payload, manned-unmanned teaming, including the necessary command, control (C2), and communication (C3);
• decision support for ASW and SBW operations and their enabling systems;
• enabling neutralisation of underwater threats.

Proposed solutions that address these areas should consider some or all of the following features:

• collaborative sensor systems concepts with enhanced capabilities for detection, classification, localisation and tracking of low signature underwater targets;
• UxVs with collaborative behaviour for improved performance in ASW and SBW operations;
• means for monitoring critical infrastructure;
• improving UxVs with, for example, enhanced seaworthiness, energy autonomy, decision autonomy, GNSS-independent navigation and automated payload processing;
• neutralisation solutions for emerging underwater threats, such as UxV:s and swarms;
• new and enhanced self-protection solutions, such as extended anti-torpedo protection using for example decoying or jamming solutions;
• mission autonomy of different degrees with partial or total remote or on-board processing;
• combat system architecture and associated applications (such as mission planning, mission management, situational awareness, tactical aid) for reduced human workload, enabling operations with manned and unmanned systems, improving connectivity and interoperability with the naval forces;
• underwater battlespace data solution to establish situational awareness in the underwater domain. Data analysis algorithms, including machine learning and AI, are required to manage ever larger volumes of (acoustic) data and support decision making;
• communication systems to operate unmanned systems with manned systems including interworking and interoperability of applications and data.

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):

The proposals must cover at least the following tasks as part of the mandatory activities:

• Design:
  • the proposals must use the NATO Architecture Framework methodology and digital twin approach to design a European interoperable ASW and SBW SoS;
  • non-proprietary standards on data/information exchange level for mission planning, mission supervision and communication to implement unmanned systems into joint/combined task forces.
• System prototyping:
  • the proposed solutions must be demonstrated under operational conditions.

In addition, the proposals should cover the following tasks:

• Design:
  • new UxV platforms with payloads for ASW missions;
  • new sensors including network topologies for threat detection and identification of emerging threats;
  • new breakthrough navigation and mission autonomy algorithms;
  • low cost solutions to provide surveillance capabilities of choke points and littoral waters.
• System prototyping:
  • the proposed solutions should be demonstrated in various operational environments.
• Testing:
  • the proposed solutions should be tested in a simulated environment;
  • the proposed solutions should at least partially be tested under operational conditions.

The proposals must substantiate absence of duplication of activities and tasks described in the topic Solutions to detect, identify, counter and protect against mobile manned, unmanned or autonomous underwater systems (including those operating at very high depths) of the call Underwater Control contributing to resilience at sea under the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP-UCCRS-MUAS-2020). The proposals must also give due consideration to sufficient human oversight of autonomous features in the solutions, as addressed e.g. by the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons Group of Governmental Experts Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (CCW GGE LAWS) 11 guiding principles.

While conforming to all relevant national, EU, and international laws and regulations, the proposals may use available and relevant sources for topic specific standards and regulations. For example the “Safety and Regulations for European Unmanned Maritime Systems”.

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).

Functional requirements

The proposals must be supported by a set of capability requirements as agreed by a group of supporting Member States and EDF associated countries (Norway). The proposals must be in line with the proposed activities and the requirements by the supporting Member States and EDF associated countries (Norway).

The outcome should at least:

• provide for enhanced detection, classification, identification, targeting and neutralisation of current and new underwater threats in challenging environments;
• be able to perform missions 24/7/365 in the European maritime waters;
• be based on a modular and agile non-proprietary system-of-systems architecture.

The outcome should contribute to:

• a stronger, more competitive and technologically independent European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB) when it comes to solutions for next generation ASW and SBW capabilities;
• enhanced security for EU Member States and EDF associated countries (Norway) and more capable and interoperable forces performing ASW and SBW operations;
• a new European interoperable concept of operations for ASW and SBW.