Indra heads the spanish involvement in the European Defence fund with new projects with a total budget of 72 million euros, thus becoming one of the continent's most prominent companies in the initiative

Indra, one of the leading global technology and consulting companies, has reinforced its position as a prominent company in the defense sector in Europe after securing its participation in seven major projects promoted by the European Union to enhance the technological sovereignty, superiority and security of the member countries.

The new contracts form part of the second call of the EDIDP (European Defense Industrial Development Program) and have a budget totaling 72 million euros that will finance the work of the consortia that Indra will be joining. 

For the second consecutive year, Indra will be the company heading the Spanish involvement in this program. It has also facilitated the incorporation of other domestic companies and research centers into the initiative, positioning Spain among the three nations with the greatest presence in it.

Last year, Indra was selected to head three other major EDIDP projects in the program and participate in two others. It assumed the leadership of two and participated in five within the Preparatory Action on Defense. 

Indra thus brings the number of projects of the new European Defense Fund in which it’s involved to a total of 19, a figure that places it among the companies with the highest level of participation in this program across the entire continent.

The new contracts won this year will enhance Indra’s capabilities in strategic areas such as command and control, electronic defense, early warning, situational awareness systems, space and radar systems and advanced solutions for countering drones. 

It will develop Artificial Intelligence technologies, advanced algorithms and much more efficient sensors to equip the military platforms and systems that will come on stream in the coming years.

In record time, Indra has become one of the best- positioned European companies in the new competitive environment opened up by the European Union with the creation of the European Defense Fund in 2017. For the first time, the EU has its own defense budget with which it can strengthen the industry and eliminate duplication to ensure a maximum return on every euro invested.

With these results, Indra is demonstrating that it’s one of the most competitive technological companies on the continent. It’s helping Spain maintain the industrial position it merits on the new European playing field and act as a driving force for the entire sector, ensuring high-quality employment, knowledge and sovereignty in dual-use technologies.

Most of the EDIDP projects Indra participates in will also continue within the framework of the PESCO (Permanent Structured Cooperation) among States. This means that different countries will acquire these capabilities and transfer them to the systems and platforms set to protect Europe in the coming years during real missions. Indra will thus enrich its portfolio of solutions to continue competing in the international market.  

The company is already working on its response to the EDIDP call launched by the EU in 2021 that will be resolved in 2022. This call marks the launch of a new phase of the European Defense Fund, in which the EDIDP program’s budget will increase to over 1.2 billion euros for the period until 2027 from the figure of 500 million euros allocated to the 2019-2020 phase.

These are the seven projects of the EDIDP 2020 call Indra is participating in:

1.    JEY-CUAS: designed to develop capabilities for the detection, classification, tracking and identification and/or neutralization of micro and mini drones used for military purposes. The solution will contribute to improving situational awareness and counter new, smaller, low-flying and low-speed aerial threats by minimizing the time required to react to them. 

2.    INTEGRAL: a project focused on the development of advanced command and control capabilities to exploit the data generated by SSA (Space Situational Awareness) systems and catalog them to provide a picture of the situation. This is a project of the highest technological value that will use innovative algorithms based on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to overcome the limitations of the current systems and give Europe independence.

3.    ODIN’S EYE: a ballistic missile early warning project that will contribute to the development of a European capability to detect the trajectories of ballistic missiles and hypersonic threats and track them from space.

4.    SAURON: the development of advanced sensors to identify and characterize objects in space based on a combination of ground-based and space-based sensors. It will pave the way for the development of a Space Situational Awareness network for the identification of any asset in orbit. 

5.    FAMOUS: the development of the next generation and evolution of the current armored platforms, including those operating in extreme weather conditions and geographical locations. Some vehicles targeted by the project are the future ATV (All-Terrain Vehicle), the LAV (Light Armored Vehicle) and the MBT (Main Battle Tank).

6.    CARMENTA: a future self-protection system for fixed and rotary wing aerial platforms to combat a wide spectrum of current and emerging threats which is capable of selecting the appropriate reaction in each case. It will use artificial intelligence and cognitive behaviors to support sensors in complex environments.

7.    MUSHER: the chief objective is the development of a generic European manned/unmanned partnership system to enable manned helicopters to inter-operate with unmanned platforms. The system will operate in civilian, military and mixed environments.

In the previous EDIDP call, Indra was awarded the leadership of the ESC2 strategic command and control and REACT cooperative electronic attack projects and the ECYSAP project for the development of the European situational awareness platform. Its participation in the EUDAAS project for the development of an anti-collision system for RPAS and the GEODE positioning, navigation and synchronization project based on Galileo was secured. As part of the PADR (Preparatory Action on Defense Research) it led the Crown project and was involved in six others.

About Indra

Indra (www.indracompany.com) is one of the leading global technology and consulting companies and the technological partner for the core business operations of its customers world-wide. It is a world-leader in providing proprietary solutions in specific segments in Transport and Defense markets, and a leading firm in Digital Transformation Consultancy and Information Technologies in Spain and Latin America through its affiliate Minsait. Its business model is based on a comprehensive range of proprietary products, with a high-value focus and with a high innovation component. In the 2020 financial year, Indra achieved revenue of €3.043 billion, nearly 48,000 employees, a local presence in 46 countries and business operations in over 140 countries.