The European Defense Agency (EDA) has funded a small but unprecedented contract with industry for a technological analysis of long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The contract, worth about 700,000 euros ($840,000), marks the first time the agency has awarded a feasibility study in this area.

The EDA’s first such contract was awarded in April to NATO’s command-and-control agency to study battlefield and communications capabilities that the EU’s future peacekeeping force will need to manage crises.

The new UAV contract, awarded Dec. 14 to a consortium led by Finland’s Patria group, covers digital line-of-sight technologies and over-the-horizon data links using satellite or relay stations. Long-endurance UAVs are expected to play an increasingly strategic role in airborne surveillance and collection of intelligence.

Patria, along with Finnish co-contractor Instrumentointi Oy, has 20 years’ experience working with the Finnish Air Force’s data link program, and the two companies have collaborated on Finnish UAV systems and network-centric architecture, the agency said.

Source and more info: DefenseNews