The kick-off meeting was attended by the 20 partners from all over Europe: Navantia (Spain, project coordinator); Naval Group Belgium, SEA Europe (Belgium); Cafa Tech (Estonia), Naval Group (France); Atlas Elektronik, Develogic, Fraunhofer, WTD71 (Germany); Prisma Electronics, SOTIRIA (Greece); Fincantieri NexTech (Italy); Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (Norway); Akademia Marynarki Wojennej, PIAP (Poland); Adyta (Portugal); GMV, Sener, SAES (Spain); and Saab Kockums (Sweden). The consortium was delighted to welcome Ms. Inge Ceuppens, European Commission Project Officer in charge of SWAT-SHOAL, and her deputy, Mr. Michal Olexa.

The project’s aim is to develop a concept of a systems-of-systems based on swarming technologies to integrate manned and unmanned naval assets, collaborating effectively as a team to achieve greater performance and efficiency in a broad spectrum of underwater missions against moving subsurface threats. The system will enable different vehicle types, working in a team as a single unit, can face more complex scenarios, or that they are organized as a squad assigning a defined task to each platform.

»The Navantia team is very much looking forward to this collaboration, in which we see the opportunity to improve the way European navies can face underwater threats using Artificial Intelligence. We are delighted to coordinate such an ambitious project«,  said Victor Moreno Ortiz, SWAT-SHOAL Project Coordinator.

Read also: »The SWAT-SHOAL project selected under 2022 European Defence Fund« (Press release, July 12, 2023)