Leonardo won the most important project of the first tender in the Defense sector issued by the European Union under the "Preparatory Action on Defense Research" program. The selection of the military research project OCEAN2020 was conducted by the European Defense Agency on a competitive basis and will be finalized in the form of a contract in the coming weeks.The OCEAN2020 team, led by Leonardo, sees the participation of 15 European countries with 42 partners, including the Ministries of Defense of Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal and Lithuania and the support of the Ministries of Defense of Sweden, France, United Kingdom, Estonia and Holland. Industrial partners include Indra, Safran, Saab, MBDA, PGZ / CTM, Hensoldt, Intracom-IDE, Fincantieri and QinetiQ. Among the research centers, Fraunhofer, TNO, CMRE (NATO) and IAI. "We are particularly pleased with this result for the strategic and technological-operational value of the OCEAN2020 program", Alessandro Profumo, CEO of Leonardo:
"It is, in fact, the first technological research project dedicated to a very topical issue of transversal interest for Europe and for the Mediterranean area in particular, that of maritime safety. This success has been possible thanks to the intense and concrete collaboration put in place by the 42 partners of the team that we have the pride to drive ".
OCEAN2020 it is the first example of a European military research program and required an in-depth analysis of operational requirements and a technologically innovative and highly valued proposal. Among other things, the project envisages the integration of unmanned platforms in surveillance and interdiction missions. With this success, Leonardo confirms and strengthens its systems and product skills in the naval domain which, in addition to combat and command and control, also include unmanned aerial vehicles, sensors, helicopters for naval applications, communications and surface and underwater weapon systems.
OCEAN2020 will allow the integration of unmanned platforms of different types (fixed wing, rotary wing, surface and underwater) with the command and control center of the naval units, providing for the data exchange via satellite with command and control centers on the ground. The joint and cooperative use of both pilot and unmanned platforms will also be demonstrated within the project. These innovative skills will be used for surveillance missions and maritime interdiction. Leonardo welcomes the Italian Navy which, as a partner of OCEAN2020, has provided and will make an important contribution to the project, both for the development of operational scenarios and making available ships and helicopters that, appropriately configured, will take part in the demonstrations.
In fact, OCEAN2020 foresees, in addition to complex simulations, two real demonstrations of surveillance and maritime interdiction operations conducted by European fleets using unmanned aircraft, surface and underwater systems. The first demonstration, planned in the 2019 in the Mediterranean, will be coordinated by the Italian Navy, and will see the unmanned helicopters of Leonardo, Hero and Solo, operate from Italian naval units and cooperate with the systems of other European partners. The second demonstration, planned in the 2020 in the Baltic, will be coordinated by the Swedish Navy. The information and data obtained from the different systems within these two demonstrations will be processed and sent to a prototype of a European command and control center in Brussels.
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Leonardo is among the top ten companies in the world in Aerospace, Defense and Security and the main Italian industrial company. Operational since January 2016 as a one company organized into seven business divisions (Helicopters; Aircraft; Aerostructures; Avionics and Space Systems; Electronics for Land and Naval Defense; Defense Systems; Security and Information Systems), Leonardo competes on the most important international markets leveraging on their areas of technological and product leadership. Listed on the Milan Internal Stock Exchange (LDO), in 2016 Leonardo recorded consolidated revenues of 12 billion euros and boasts a significant industrial presence in Italy, the United Kingdom, the USA and Poland.