Objectives

This EDF call is a thematic call for development actions dedicated to disruptive technologies for defence and implemented through lump sum grants. More broadly, the Fund supports collaborative defence research and development in order to strengthen the competitiveness, efficiency and innovation capacity of the European defence technological and industrial base, reinforce EU strategic autonomy, widen cross-border cooperation and reduce fragmentation in defence products and technologies. Since this call contains a single topic, its operational focus is over-the-horizon sensing. The document explains that EU surveillance requirements call for improved situational awareness and operational superiority through better detection, tracking and identification over very large areas, with increased range and minimum latency. High-frequency over-the-horizon systems can provide long-range coverage, but current solutions still present important limitations, including blind areas. The call therefore aims to follow up and complement previous OTH activities and advance an EU OTH radar network concept based on deep cooperation and data sharing for strategic surveillance.

Proposals are expected to explore and integrate HF surface-wave and sky-wave radar technologies, including active, cooperative and non-cooperative passive approaches, so that their respective advantages can be combined in an agile network. The action should investigate cognitive spectrum management, ionospheric sounding networks, AI/ML-based experimentation, synchronisation and advanced signal processing, and should end with a proof-of-concept design and small-scale demonstrators. The expected result is stronger European capacity to monitor air and maritime spaces, detect challenging targets such as hypersonic, low-observable or slow surface targets, strengthen cooperation between industries and research institutes, and reduce or prevent the strategic dependencies of the Union. The topic also contributes to STEP objectives in deep and digital technologies.

Actions

This call covers the following topics:

EDF-2026-LS-DA-DIS-OTHR: New abilities in over-the-horizon sensing