GMV will be taking part in four of the sixteen projects selected in the first call selected by the European Defence Fund within the first EDIDP call. The European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP) is a two-year program that sets out to boost the EU’s defense competitiveness, thus helping to build EU’s strategic autonomy.

The program aims to support the EU defense industry’s equipment- and technology-development efforts, working with CU co-financing and a 500 million euro budget for 2019 and 2020 (245 million for 2019 and 255 for 2020). The four projects account for 155 million euros, over 50 % of the total budget of this first EDIDP call. All of them, falling under the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), are strategically important EU projects.

GMV has focused on areas where it has built up a wealth of expertise and international experience, helping all projects in which it is participating to make the cut. The awarded projects, centering on the development of command and control, navigation, unmanned vehicle and cyberdefense capabilities, are the following:

• Europe’s strategic command and control system (ESC2), which will reinforce EU’s command and control capability for its participation in joint international missions involving its member states. Since 2016 GMV has been involved in the EU’s command, control and information system (EUCCIS) and will play a key role in the development of this system.
• The GEODE (Galileo for EU Defence) project for development of the Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) system for defense applications, based on Galileo’s Public Regulated Service (PRS), where GMV has long been playing a key part in adapting it for various domains. In GEODE Spain is developing the navigation systems for naval uses, including PRS receivers, where GMV is responsible for the functions of signal processing, navigation and timing.
• Integrated Modular Unmanned Ground System (iMUGS), which explores new development in manned-unmanned teaming (MUT), including swarms. iMUGS will enable European countries to use unmanned vehicles with logistics- and ISR-functions, trimming the load and increasing troop security. GMV will be coordinator of the command and control and interoperability project (C4ISR), bringing to the table its wealth of experience in C2 ground systems and JISR interoperability (Joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance).
• The PANDORA project for enhancing EU’s cyberdefense capability on the strength of a detection and threat-response solution, allowing member states to share important information. GMV will be helping to implement the software platform for situation monitoring and the exchange of information between agencies and states.

These awards win GMV pole position for the second European Defense Fund phase, due to kick off in 2021; this second phase will significantly boost the European Commission’s defense outlay and defense collaboration between member states.