Operational Resilience of Drones in Experiments and Autonomous fLight

ongoing

The ORDEAL project will host organise a technological challenge environment and test procedure for participating projects participants to demonstrate accurate positioning in non-permissive environments for single and swarm drones. The EC has chosen, as part of the EDF-2024-LS-RA-CHALLENGE-SENS-RADNP call, complementary to ORDEAL, four participant consortia. The participants projects named themselves, in alphabetic order, NAVISENSE-X, ORIGAMI, SNADE and SWARMER. Details can be found in their project action related documentation. Guidelines will be provided to challenge participants projects on how to effectively use the data management and sharing platform to work together and share collected sensor data. These guidelines will be documented in the Collaboration Agreement, to be signed by both ORDEAL and all participating projects. After each field test (except for the last year), a data-based test will take place, where data will be shared among participating projects. This allows participants them to refine their positioning algorithms and gain new insights. A secure platform will be used to collect annotated sensor data, provided to the challenge organizer, ORDEAL, and made available to other participating projects? teams in the context of the challenge. The platform prioritizes security without compromising efficiency, collaboration, and productivity. The ORDEAL project is structured into three phases: • Phase 1: Challenge Preparation This phase focuses on engaging with stakeholders like the involved MoD’s to define the challenge for the year and preparing for the four field-test campaigns. The outcome of this phase is a detailed test plan and procedure that is shared with challenge participants to help them prepare for the field test and data-based test. • Phase 2: Field Test and Data-Based Test This phase involves conducting the field test and data-based test, providing challenge conditions for participants. The phase concludes with test reports on both tests, which serve as input for the evaluation phase. • Phase 3: Evaluation In this final phase, all results and findings from participants are evaluated using developed scoring and measurement methods. Participants are compared to each other, and evaluation results are used to track progress from one test campaign to the next. The phase concludes with a debrief workshop where feedback is collected from end-users and participating projects to inform improvements for future test campaigns. The ORDEAL project's technologies and knowledge have broad applications across various defence capabilities, including enhancing situational awareness, autonomous operation, and secure communications for ground, marine, and air vehicles. The advancements can be applied to intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance missions, counter-UAV systems, disaster response, training simulations, and logistics operations. The project's outcomes can also be used beyond drone-related solutions in the defence and security sector, with potential applications in unmanned systems on land, sea, and space. The project's focus on test planning, evaluation, and UAV jamming can strengthen defence capabilities by building expertise, fostering innovation, and establishing testing frameworks. Theis technological challenge organized by ORDEAL will encourage collaboration among stakeholders, sparking innovation and advancing practical solutions that can apply to other defence domains. The ORDEAL consortium brings together partners with diverse expertise, resources, and technical capabilities to tackle the technological challenge. The consortium's composition is carefully designed to meet the specific needs of the project, ensuring that fundamental knowledge is translated into practical solutions for EU Member States armed forces.