The European Defence Agency (EDA) and the European Commission (EC) conference on unmanned aircraft systems plans to consider closer cooperation in a common European way forward.
“The tasking given by the EDA’s Steering Board in Ministers of Defence formation, in April this year, is to prepare and propose a Joint Investment program on Unmanned Aircraft Systems for political launch in autumn this year. The target is clear; we want to address the remaining technological challenges for UAS Air Traffic Insertion as well as exploitation of their capabilities to support seamless flying of UAS in Europe by 2015,” EDA Chief Executive Alexander Weis said in the joint EDA-EC statement.
More than 450 senior government officials and industry representatives attended the conference.
Presentations by senior representatives of European stakeholders’ groups outlined the dual use nature of UAS, both for defence and civilian security purposes. Financial savings and environmental benefits through reduced fuel consumption as well as CO2 emissions were highlighted, in addition to the multiple possibilities UAS already offer in reducing the risk to human life in high risk missions.
Military and civil UAS markets are highly interdependent, with technology developments inevitably driving both, the statement said.
The Commission and the European Defence Agency are committed at the European level, to closely observe, support and contribute to the evolution of UAS technologies for dual-use purposes.
EDA’s Chief Executive, Alexander Weis,announced ongoing work under the so called “European Framework Cooperation”, a pragmatic approachby the European Commission, the European Defence Agency and the European Space Agency to synchronize systematically Research and Technology investment in their respective frameworks.
Several senior officials called for a joint European approach to develop common Unmanned Aircraft System capabilities in order to maximize efficiency in public spending and to ensure that alternative European platforms are available within the coming years.
The Conference recommended the establishment of a High Level Group on UAS, providing a discussion platformto European Stakeholder communities in order to ensure coherencewhilst improving sustainability and competiveness, notably building on input and ongoing initiatives from research areas such as the “European Framework Cooperation.”