Indra and six other Spanish companies join forces to develop sovereign capabilities for monitoring and protecting underwater infrastructure
Aragon Photonics, Iqua Robotics, SAES, Sateliot, UTEK, FYLA and Indra combine their industrial and technological capabilities to advance the development of solutions for persistent surveillance and the protection of underwater infrastructure
Coordinated by Indra, the companies are driving SIPRIS, an initiative that will integrate intelligence and sovereign AI capabilities, unmanned vehicles, sensors, mission systems and communications to build an integrated picture of the environment, from the surface to the seabed
The agreement was reached at Euronaval, the international trade show where Spanish industry has stood out as a European pioneer in underwater surveillance
Indra, SAES, UTEK, Aragon Photonics, Iqua Robotics, FYLA and Sateliot today signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop sovereign capabilities for persistent surveillance and the protection of underwater infrastructure through the SIPRIS project. The signing took place at Euronaval, the leading international naval defence event, held in Paris from 3 to 6 November.
Ana Belén Buendía, Director of Indra’s Naval Business Unit; César Solano, General Manager of SAES; César Martínez Fernández, CEO of UTEK; Francisco López Torres, CEO of Aragon Photonics; Marc Carreras Pérez, CEO of Iqua Robotics; Pere Pérez Millán, CEO of FYLA; and Jaume Sanpera Izoard, CEO of Sateliot, signed the memorandum of understanding.
Ana Belén Buendía, Director of Indra’s Naval Business Unit, stressed that “the SIPRIS initiative aims to provide Europe with technological sovereignty and specialised capabilities to address the urgent need to observe, understand and monitor the underwater domain”. She added that “collaboration between Spanish companies with cutting-edge, complementary capabilities will enable us to build an integrated solution, strengthen our technological autonomy and position Spanish industry in a field with enormous potential for development”.
Indra will act as the overall solution integrator and ecosystem coordinator, as well as defining the system architecture. The solution will draw on SEADEF, the company’s family of naval mission system products, and IndraMind, its sovereign AI-based intelligence and data exploitation platform. Indra will also contribute unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and communications management capabilities.
SAES brings its technological capabilities in underwater acoustics to the alliance, including the development of acoustic sensors and advanced sonar processing solutions for detecting and classifying underwater threats and activities.
UTEK will focus on autonomous surface vehicles (USVs), developing new vehicles tailored to this application that will extend the system’s coverage and surveillance area and provide inspection capabilities.
Iqua Robotics will develop autonomous underwater vehicles (UUVs) to carry out underwater infrastructure inspections and automatically detect anomalies.
Aragon Photonics contributes its expertise in high-fidelity distributed acoustic sensing (HDAS) technology using optical fibre, which enables acoustic events to be detected along tens of kilometres of underwater communications networks.
FYLA will contribute its expertise in underwater optical communications technologies, designed to facilitate information exchange between the various elements deployed underwater.
Finally, Sateliot will provide satellite communications and information systems to extend coverage and support the system’s distributed operations.
The signing of the agreement marks a first step towards building an industrial and technological ecosystem around SIPRIS capable of addressing emerging underwater surveillance needs. Integrating complementary capabilities will enable progress towards a shared, modular solution designed to evolve and incorporate new technologies as new operational needs arise.
SIPRIS is conceived as an initiative open to the gradual inclusion of other companies, technology centres and Spanish industry stakeholders that can contribute capabilities and help expand persistent surveillance of the underwater domain. This agreement aligns efforts and facilitates operational demonstrations and joint integration and validation activities ahead of market deployment. Spanish industry thus strengthens its competitive position and consolidates its standing as a leader in a field accessible only to countries with the most advanced technological capabilities.